


Gryffindor Colors

by EvilFuzzy9



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: And Dolores Umbridge, And The Other Is Just an Awful Human Being, Aside From Maybe Voldemort, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, But I Mean One Is A Literal Sociopath, But That's Half the Fun, Cougar Narcissa, Crack, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, F/M, Good Narcissa Black Malfoy, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Marriage of Convenience, Mild Smut, No Bashing, Pureblood Politics, Purebloods Are Weird, Self-Indulgent, This is Honestly Really Contrived, Very Fast Marriage, so far - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-05-28 19:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6343144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilFuzzy9/pseuds/EvilFuzzy9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, "Redheaded Stepfather"</p><p>The reasoning of pureblood fanatics is incomprehensible to anyone halfway normal, and even Harry Potter is close enough to ordinary to find himself at a loss for how on earth Narcissa Malfoy so suddenly became Mrs. Ronald Weasley. </p><p>[crackship, crackfic, crack premise; Roncissa, lemon-scented]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fanfic depicts activities of an adult nature between fictional characters. The author of this fic strongly discourages minors from reading this, and also from participating in any and all such activities until they are at the age of majority/consent as defined in the laws or customs of their state or principality.

"Please, Dumbledore! They say you are the only one whom the Dark Lord ever truly feared... can you not protect myself and my son?" begged Narcissa Malfoy, kneeling desperately before the legendary wizard. "I will do anything, _anything_ , to keep my Draco safe!"

And saying this, she hesitated momentarily, looking down from Dumbledore's face to the region of his loins.

Swallowing her pride, frantic and determined to convince the man of her sincerity, Narcissa fumbled with the front of her robes and began to undo them. She started parting her robes from the neck on down, slowly revealing a creamy expanse of cleavage.

She made it only a third of the way over her bosom before she noticed the headmaster holding a hand up as if to say _stop_. He was looking into her eyes with a kindly, almost pitying expression. He did not seem remotely interested in her breasts.

On one hand, this was something of a blow to Narcissa's pride. She was a very attractive woman, after all, and she had always somewhat enjoyed the effect her body had on the wizards and witches around her. On the other hand, though, at least it seemed she would not have to _service_ the old man (shudder) to make him agree.

"You come to me so shortly after the events at the Ministry, Narcissa," said Dumbledore, kindly surveying her like she was a student asking for nothing more bothersome than clarification on a point made in a lesson. "It has not been even half a week since your husband was taken to Azkaban..."

"I have divorced him," Narcissa said, trying to repress the slight pang of regret she felt at saying this.

She had truly loved Lucius, but the path he'd taken was one she could not afford to follow. Not any longer. More important than anything to her was the safety of her son, and she knew enough of the Dark Lord's ways to guess that he would seek to revenge Lucius's failure on Draco, or herself. And if she was gone, who would then protect Draco?

"The Malfoy family's assets are mine," she continued, "as are—I should assume—all those of the Black and Lestrange families. My Draco is the last male heir... and as much as I loathe your beliefs, I fear that the Dark Lord would see my son dead in his service before allowing my family's line to continue."

"You have a better measure of Voldemort, in that case, than do most of your peers," Dumbledore said softly, steepling his fingers. He did not question her on her mention of the Lestranges.

Narcissa winced at his use of the Dark Lord's name, but she said nothing about it.

"What would you ask of me in exchange for our protection?" she queried with some trepidation, looking pleadingly up at Dumbledore. "I am willing to do anything for my Draco, _anything_ , even marry a blood traitor. Wed me even to the youngest Weasley boy, if you must! If it keeps my son safe, I could give my body and—and my heart to anyone."

"I would never ask someone to marry without love," said Dumbledore serenely. "Nor would I ask payment for what you seek, not so baldly as that. Simply seeing Voldemort deprived of your family's services and resources would suffice, I should think. You may have faithfully supported your husband in his endeavors, but I do not believe you bear the mark yourself, do you? And your son, certainly, is perhaps blameless of all but a poor attitude."

"But I have done much in the Dark Lord's name," Narcissa said shakily. "I have cheated and lied and stolen for him and Lucius. My son may be innocent, but I... surely you would not take _me_ with no payment. You did not do as much for Severus, did you?"

Dumbledore arched one of his eyebrows. The atmosphere in the room seemed to grow suddenly and slightly tenser.

"And how much do you know of Severus or his loyalties?" he asked lightly.

"I know the Dark Lord believes him to be spy for our—I mean, _his_ side. And I know that _you_ believe him to be a spy for your side, in turn," Narcissa said neutrally.

"You suspect more than that, however, don't you?"

"I know Severus was close with the mudbl—er, Lily Evans in school, however much he hated Potter. I've heard as much from his old classmates," Narcissa said. "I also know he became a spy in your camp only after the Dark Lord had decided to target the Potters and their son. I..." She hesitated. "I think Severus asked the Dark Lord to spare Lily, to let him take her as a reward for his services."

Dumbledore's expression did not immediately change, but Narcissa could tell that he was genuinely astonished to hear her say this.

"You are a great deal more perceptive than most on either side," he said after a lengthy silence. "To suspect so much of Severus..."

"It is good to be suspicious," Narcissa said diplomatically. "My sister did not trust Severus, or at least she didn't much like him. Of course," she added, looking sideways at Dumbledore, "most of this is merely conjecture, isn't it? I have no _proof_ that Severus ever felt anything more meaningful than lust for Lily Evans, and half his peers would have been guilty of the same. I've no evidence, either, that he is not a faithful servant of the Dark Lord playing you for a fool. But if he _did_ ask you to protect Lily, then surely... surely you must have asked him to spy for you in return, if only as repayment for his crimes."

Dumbledore observed Narcissa shrewdly.

"And you believe your own crimes great enough to demand such repayment, also?"

"I believe there are many on your side who would not gladly welcome me," Narcissa said tentatively. "And I believe they would be happy to see me degrade myself and betray the principles on which my parents raised me."

"And you would do that by...?" said Dumbledore, frowning.

"I have told you already, have I not? I would even marry a blood traitor. Even debase myself for the youngest Weasley boy. I can think of nothing more shameful, and no punishment more fitting, save procreating with a mud— _muggleborn,_ and that alone I cannot do."

Narcissa shuddered, as though revolted by the very thought.

"I do not approve," Dumbledore said slowly. "It would be a discredit to both you and the boy, to let you do such a thing without love."

"I do not care about myself," said Narcissa adamantly. "Not so long as my Draco is safe. And do you expect me to believe that a teenage boy would find it _unpleasant_ to have a woman of my beauty as a wife, bound to serve him with this body? Or that his family would be unhappy to have a generous dowry from the Malfoy, Black, and Lestrange family vaults?"

Dumbledore's mustache twitched, his expression still disapproving.

"You think much too shallowly, Narcissa," he said in a tone of gentle rebuke. "No one would be happy with such a thing, whatever you might believe."

"And you are too idealistic, professor," Narcissa stubbornly retorted, her face red, "to expect always that people should marry for love, and love alone! For a man so supposedly brilliant, you really are terribly naive."

"Yet I am the one you came to asking for protection," said Dumbledore lightly.

"My son you will protect on your own terms, I am certain. He is as innocent as he can be. You said so yourself." Narcissa's eyes flashed. "But I will earn my protection on _my_ terms. My parents groomed me to be a wife, not a soldier or a spy. They only ever wanted me to marry a nice pureblood man and bear him respectable pureblood children. The only thing I can do to repay my past indiscretions is to follow their wishes, even if not in the way they would have liked."

Dumbledore assessed her for a long moment, several minutes passing as he peered into Narcissa's eyes with that keen, piercing glance. He looked once up and down her form, dispassionately noting a still-bared stretch of cleavage.

Then something like a smile flitted across his lips, a twinkle in his eyes.

" _Ah_ ," he said at last, something maddeningly knowing in his tone. "I see. You had a crush on Arthur when you were young, didn't you? He was a quite few years above you in Hogwarts, nearly of age when you first encountered him as a young girl. You must have fancied him very briefly before you learned he was already involved with Molly." He inclined his head. "I must admit, I am surprised that you would have desired a man with Arthur's fondness for muggles."

Narcissa blushed an impressive shade of Gryffindor red.

"I didn't know about his obsession," she said defensively. "I just... well, he was a rather handsome older boy from a pureblood family. It's not like Blacks hadn't married Weasleys before... and, well, he was _very_ good looking. It was the hair, I think. Redheads really are..."

She trailed off, visibly embarrassed.

"I would not know," Dumbledore said brightly. "Arthur is not my type, I think. Of course, I never was one to judge men entirely by looks in the first place... but you are very determined, aren't you? To marry one of Arthur's sons?"

"I saw him at the World Cup," Narcissa said quietly, blushing. "The youngest boy, Ronald. He's the spitting image of his father at that age. And at my own age, younger men are quite... well, for all his talk of mu-muggleborns and blood traitors, Lucius was certainly not averse to staring at Arthur's daughter and Granger in those muggle clothes of theirs. It's only fair, really."

"We have very different ideas of fairness, in that case," Dumbledore said, but he sounded slightly amused. "Still, I have already agreed to protect you and your son. And if you are this determined to court a Weasley, I shall not stop you. Nor will I stop Molly, however, and she will doubtless be _much_ more firmly opposed."

Narcissa waved a hand dismissively.

"Her family would benefit greatly from my money," she said. "And I doubt young Ronald would be averse to intimacy with an attractive older woman."

"Do as you wish, then," said Dumbledore with an airy wave. "I would advise you to remain in the castle while I sort out the arrangements, at the very least. It should be ready by the end of term."

"Might you tell me where the Gryffindor common room is, then, in the meantime?" asked Narcissa as innocently as she could manage.

"Hm." Dumbledore gave her another piercing look, as though he were x-raying her with his eyes. "So long as you swear not to spread that knowledge," he said at last. "And so long as you are willing to leave your wand and... any other questionable articles on your person with me. I do not doubt your sincerity, you understand, but it would be foolishness beyond even what Lucius might expect of me to let you go in there armed."

"Thank goodness," said Narcissa wryly. "I'm glad to know you at least have more sense than my former husband would have thought you to."

"You flatter me," said Dumbledore. "Now please, kindly turn in anything dangerous you might have."

"Of course. I will not need anything but my robes for what I plan," Narcissa answered. "And even those, only until I reach my destination."

Dumbledore pretended not to hear this.

* * *

Ron was having a nice dream. It was the sort of dream that made him glad he did not have Harry's connection to a mind other than his own, and gladder still that Hermione was not a legilimens. It was far from the first dream of its sort that he had ever had, but it was certainly the most vivid.

He could feel with astounding explicitness the moistness, warmth, and _pressure_ which enveloped a painfully throbbing erection, feel the goosebumps rising along skin as soft, pliable flesh deformed at his touch, two generous globes weighing down in his hands. He could smell something crisp under a pungent, rising musk, and he could taste indescribable flavors as a tongue played enthusiastically against his own. He could see with crystal clarity the face of Malfoy's mum, her cheeks flush with arousal, aristocratic features contorted into a look that was somewhere between predatory and admiring as she straddled his naked hips.

This was not the first time he had dreamt about the woman, although she was certainly not the most frequent star of his nighttime fantasies. However unpleasant her personality and questionable her choice in husbands, Narcissa was undeniably sexy. What Ron felt for her was a very shallow sort of attraction, a base and meaningless lust he had only ever entertained in the dead of night.

Certainly, he had never given any serious thought to pursuing the woman. This was too absurd a notion to even consider. Still, that did not keep his subconscious from materializing the occasional wet dream about her. She had a nice body, and that was all his reptilian hindbrain cared about, even if Ron himself did actually—in what might come as a surprise to some—look for rather more in his theoretical potential girlfriend than good curves or a pretty face. He was less shallow than he acted, although not necessarily by the most admirable margin.

Nonetheless, regardless of reality, this was a good dream. Perhaps it became slightly weird when she asked him if he would like to marry her while pointing his wand at their vigorously joined sexes, but as it _was_ only a dream, Ron saw no problem with nodding his head (watching raptly as a gorgeous, mature pair of knockers bobbed with the rocking of their bodies) and grunting the words:

"Yeah, sure."

It admittedly perturbed him on some level when his wand then sparked and conjured a pair of plain iron rings, but dreams were usually a bit nonsensical, weren't they? And the brief glow of light from his and Narcissa's genitals was not much stranger than the rings placing themselves on their fingers.

Ron was not overly bothered, either, when he felt a painful prick in the skin of his finger where the ring had slipped itself, or when he saw runes form in the surface. Not though something in the back of his mind whispered that this was odd, and a part of him felt like he was forgetting something important.

But he was too busy enjoying the sensations of dream sex and wondering if the real thing would feel as good to care about tiny details like that. And when he felt himself tense up, saw Malfoy's mum seize and shudder and bite her lip atop him, their bodies melding together in a single instant of bliss, he could no longer think at all.

He erupted inside her, and she doused his lap and his sheets with the perfume of her womanhood. Ron's brain was too pleasantly numb and tingly in the aftermath of this to register as his surroundings—the curtains drawn around his four poster bed in the fifth year Gryffindor boys' dormitory—blurred and faded into the blackness.

And then he could not think anything at all, as sleep retook him.

* * *

Ron awoke feeling sore but refreshed, barely noticing or caring that something warm and soft and human-sized was bundled up in the covers beside him.

He just felt so good this fine morning! Even the yet fresh scarring on his arms seemed to ache and sting less obviously than it had over the last few days.

Despite himself, Ron felt weirdly chipper and inexplicably pleased. An almost stupid grin stretched itself across his lips, raising their corners nearly up to his ears. He lay there for a long moment, basking in a practically _magical_ glow.

"Mmm," a voice mumbled nearby. Ron barely noticed it.

Seamus Finnegan was more attentive.

"Finally up, are you?" came the Irishman's voice, a hint of amusement in his tone. "About time! Maybe now you'll be up to telling Dean and me what you guys got up to at the Ministry. Like usual, Harry's been about as talkative as a—"

Seamus yanked the bed curtains aside.

Then he swore loudly and profusely.

"Bloody hell!" Seamus yelped, going as red as Ron's hair. "Give us some _notice_ the next time you have company, you prat! And she's old enough to be me mam, too..."

There was something almost morbidly envious in his tone, which made Ron blink.

"Eh?" he said intelligently.

His eyes fell on the slumbering, apparently naked form of an attractive older woman, her body kept only just decent by the covers pulled over her chest. He saw an iron ring on her finger, its circumference marked with runic lettering. One of her hands was dangerously close to his arse.

Which was as bare as hers, a distantly removed part of him reckoned.

With a numb sort of jolt, a welling of emotion he could not name or place or even describe in his own head, Ron remembered that vivid, wonderfully erotic dream. A dream in which the woman beside him had engaged him in most vigorous sex. A dream in which a pair of rings had been conjured and placed upon their fingers.

Weakly, almost dreading what he would find, Ron raised his hand and looked at his ring finger.

A matching ring to the blonde's, a plain iron band with runes going around it, adorned his long and freckled digit.

The blood drained from his face.

"Ron?" said a groggy yet stunned sounding Harry. Footsteps came from the direction of his bed. "What on _earth_ is Mrs. Malfoy doing in your bed?"

"It's Weasley, now," said Narcissa lazily, stirring and giving the assembled boys a stern look. "And I really would appreciate some privacy while my husband and I dress."

Her hand slipped closer to Ron under the covers and gave his bum a tight, possessive squeeze.

Seamus went red, and Harry spluttered indignantly. Dean and Neville let out nearly identical squawks, having finally noticed the second body in their dorm mate's bed. The curtains drew shut once more around the four poster.

Narcissa Weasley sat up in the bed and gave her husband a vaguely fond, clearly hungry look.

Ron's brain broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don't know. This is just a shameless, utterly self-indulgent bit of crack. There is nothing else I can say. XD
> 
> Updated: 3-17-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	2. Chapter 2

"You must have bewitched him. He had to have been under some sort of enchantment!" said Hermione indignantly, glaring at Narcissa.

The older woman gave her a look that oozed an airy sort of smugness.

"You call it an _enchantment_ that made Ron choose to marry me?" Narcissa drawled. "Well, then, I suppose that makes one kind of charm beyond your power, girl."

Ron looked between his friend and his wife—his _wife!_ He still couldn't really grasp it. Since when had the world been so completely mad that he could just wake up one day and find himself married to Draco Malfoy's mum? It was beyond sense.

Harry, sitting beside Ron, looked quite as bewildered as his friend. He was staring into the distance, a expression of utter shock and uncomprehension on his face. He appeared paler than Moaning Myrtle.

They were in the boy's dorm. Seamus, Dean, and Neville had vacated a short while ago in a rush of embarrassment and confusion. Hermione had come running when she heard the commotion they were making, and Harry had met her outside the door. He had only barely been able to explain the situation to her.

Ron and Narcissa were now fully dressed, the latter sitting very close to the former. She was practically in his lap.

Hermione looked mutinous.

"What are you plotting?" she said at last, scowling. "You can't really expect us to believe that you simply up and decided to elope with a sixteen year old boy you'd hardly even exchanged two words with."

"Yet that _is_ the truth," said Narcissa haughtily. "Not the whole truth, perhaps, but it is not false, either."

"What would Voldemort want with Ron?" Harry coolly interjected, a strange light coming into his eyes. Ron and Narcissa cringed at the name. "Why would he order you to seduce him?"

He pointed his wand at Narcissa. His expression was hard and fierce, blazing green eyes as vivid as the curse which had given him his famous lightning bolt scar.

"I am no longer with the Dark Lord," Narcissa said. Although she affected a dismissive tone, there was a hint of unease in her posture. "He is... no longer a safe bet for the future. His servants are in as much danger from him as his enemies are."

"Oh, is that all?" said Hermione rather scornfully. "You didn't have any problem with his methods when he was killing muggles and torturing muggleborns, I'm sure."

"I will not pretend to care about lesser beings," said Narcissa tersely. "My first concern is my family."

"Hermione's my friend," said Ron, looking affronted. "And I don't think my mum and dad would be happy to hear you talking like that."

Narcissa's demeanor instantly changed.

"Oh, but of course, dear. I did not mean to speak unkindly," she simpered. "Naturally, I defer to your judgement. You are my husband, after all, and the head of my house, with all the gold and authority of Black, Malfoy, and Lestrange."

Ron stared at her owlishly. He blinked.

"Er... pardon?"

"Draco and I are the last surviving members of the Black and Malfoy bloodlines," Narcissa smoothly explained. "And as Bella was kind enough to leave all her effects to me in the event of her death..."

"You killed her?" Hermione gasped, her mind working as quickly as ever.

"Of course not," said Narcissa. "I am no _murderer_. But my sister has not been entirely in possession of her senses for many years, as you can surely guess. I can hardly be blamed if, in a fit of confusion, Bella decided to dry her clothes over fiendfyre. Nor, I am sure, is there anyone to blame for Rodolphus and Rabastan choosing to start that riot in Azkaban." She paused, frowning. "...or for Lucius getting caught in the middle of it."

In saying this last one, Narcissa looked genuinely sad, and she trailed off with a sigh. She leaned close to Ron as though seeking his comfort.

Without thinking, the redhead put his arms around her.

"Er... There, there," Ron whispered. "It's alright."

Harry stared. This scene was utterly bizarre, not least of which in that Ron Weasley was demonstrating genuine sensitivity and tact, let alone to the _mother of_ _Draco Malfoy_.

Hermione ground her teeth.

* * *

Owls swooped over the four long house tables in the Great Hall as students breakfasted. A fair number of the birds carried copies of the _Daily Prophet_ , for which they were paid by the recipients. Titles like _Strange Ends of the Lestrange Family_ , _Forest of Dean Ravaged by Fiendfyre Inferno_ , and _Anarchy in Azkaban: Have the Death Eaters Got Free Rein?_ jumped out from the pages, catching immediate interest.

The hall was soon atwitter with talk of these and other articles, everyone eager for news in the aftermath of the Ministry's recent one-eighty on the topic of You-Know-Who's return. Now that it had come out that Dumbledore and Harry Potter had been right all along, people were naturally devouring any news they could find on Voldemort and his followers, and the papers were more than willing to provide on that front.

Many whispered in awe and morbid curiosity over the dark magic wildfire in which the charred corpse of Bellatrix Lestrange had been discovered, or else of the prison riot in Azkaban that had claimed the lives of several recently captured Death Eaters. Many were heartened to hear of this news, for some of the Dark Lord's most prominent servants were now dead, including his most faithful and fanatical. A few others, however, darkly murmured that these events were suspicious, and wondered indeed if Lord Voldemort hadn't instigated them himself.

"Bellatrix had to have been done in by You-Know-Who," said Terry Boot to his fellow Ravenclaws, jostling his bowl of cereal as he bent in low and conspiratorially over the table. "She was the only other one to escape the Ministry, isn't that right? Whatever they were there to do, it was obviously bungled. I'd say he killed her for mucking up, then brought her body to the forest and cast fiendfyre to get rid of it."

"He didn't do a very good job of that, then, did he?" said Michael Corner, listening in. "If he wanted to destroy the evidence. Nah, I think he _meant_ for her body to be found. It was probably a scare tactic. If You-Know-Who is willing to kill his most loyal servant, then who's to say what he might do to his enemies?"

Most of those listening to this exchange shivered.

One, however, did not.

"Don't be silly," said Luna Lovegood in her usual dreamy tone. "Clearly Fudge sent his army of heliopaths to silence Bellatrix after she found out about his plot to take over Gringotts. He did a rather sloppy job of it, too. Daddy was able to get a picture of one of the heliopaths before the Ministry could round them all back up."

Cheerfully she produced a copy of the _Quibbler_ , on the front page of which could be seen a photograph of beast-shaped tongues of flame dancing in a blackened, denuded canopy. Cho Chang turned to examine this, tearing a quizzical gaze from the Gryffindor table. She frowned.

"Isn't that fiendfyre, though?" Cho whispered a little tentatively. She wasn't entirely sure how to address Luna between the girl's abject weirdness and recent involvement in the break in at the Ministry, finding it more difficult than ever to classify the dotty blonde.

Luna gave Cho a vaguely pitying sort of smile, the kind that one might give to somebody dear but very stupid. She shook her head.

"No, that's just the story put out by the Ministry to hide the truth," Luna said. "Fiendfyre, swamp gas, blast-ended skrewts—they use all kinds of excuses to cover up what really happens. Daddy sees right through it, though."

Cho smiled uncertainly while Terry and Michael edged a little bit away from Luna. The blonde seemed obliviously happy, and she stowed the _Quibbler_ back away with a small nod.

Over at the Hufflepuff table, Ernie Macmillan was regaling his housemates with lots of impressive talk.

"Naturally, I would have gone straight to the Ministry with them, had I known," he said pompously. "Potter's a good chap, and didn't I always say he and Dumbledore had the right of it? Harry was doubtless pressed for time, or else I am sure he would have contacted me at once to come help."

Zacariah Smith rolled his eyes.

"I wouldn't have been so eager to rush off with them, personally," he said. "It was one thing to prepare for our defense practicals in the OWLs, but gallivanting about and getting into fights with Death Eaters and You-Know-Who? Whether he was right or not, you can't deny that Potter's got a temper. The six of them were in some pretty sorry states when they got back, and I think it's rather fishy that Umbridge has been in the hospital wing ever since."

"If they had anything to do with the old hag getting hospitalized, then I say they deserve special awards for services to the school," interjected Susan Bones. "Maybe even an Order of Merlin. But Umbridge was found in the Forbidden Forest, wasn't she? I can believe that cow being stupid enough to just wander in there by herself and run afoul of the acromantula colony."

Hannah Abbot shuddered and gave Susan a shove. "Don't even _joke_ about that!" she cried. "It would be simply HORRIBLE if there really were giant, man-eating spiders in the forest!"

Susan shrugged, smiling amusedly.

The Slytherin table was decidedly tenser and quieter than the other three. At least a few of the students there had relatives among the recently killed or captured Death Eaters, and Draco looked especially pale.

 _"Sorry to hear about your father,"_ had said a few less than sympathetic upperclassmen, and some sniggering juniors too. Draco's core acquaintances were more supportive, but they could only cheer him up so much.

Lucius Malfoy had been killed on the Dark Lord's orders. This was what many of the Slytherins believed, especially those who had Death Eater relatives. It was unsurprising to those with any knowledge of the Dark Lord's ways, or of how Lucius had failed his master before. He had been all but marked for death.

More disconcerting was the apparent execution of Bellatrix Lestrange. It was well known that she had probably been the most loyal and powerful of the Dark Lord's followers, and fanatically devoted to his cause. That she would be killed for one failure, however large, when she had so many years of service to her credit was undeniably disturbing.

But what probably had Draco the most upset was something his housemates had thankfully not yet noticed. They did not, after all, regularly make a habit of examining his laundry. And this was fortunate, for he did not doubt that they would show their amusement loudly and openly if they had seen that the _Draco Malfoy_ embroidered inside his robes had been changed, seemingly overnight, to _Draco Weasley_.

The Gryffindor table, for its part, was so raucous and busy that not many noticed the odd looks on the faces of Neville, Dean, and Seamus. What _was_ noticed was the absence of Harry Potter, and by association the similar absences of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. There was as much murmuring about this as about the articles in the Daily Prophet.

Hardly anyone noticed a small piece, barely a paragraph long, announcing that service at Gringotts had recently slowed, and that Dirk Cresswell (head of the Goblin Liason office) attributed the growing backlog to increased security measures.

* * *

Narcissa and her husband had stayed in Gryffindor tower to have breakfast there. Ron was still trying to get used to the idea that he was married, although Narcissa's attentions and whispered nothings certainly made him amenable to it, and they did not want to make a scene in the Great Hall.

Harry had volunteered to fetch some food from the kitchens under his invisibility cloak, obviously eager to put some space between himself and the pair. Hermione stayed behind, refusing to leave Ron and Narcissa alone together.

"I don't want to draw undue attention," Narcissa said by way of explanation, smiling at Ron in a way that made her visage appear doubly fair and striking.

Hermione snorted, still disinclined to like or sympathize with the woman.

"Yes, and you've certainly done a fine job of that," she said scathingly.

Ron frowned, unsure whether or not to feel incensed on Narcissa's behalf. He thought about it for a moment, and was about to open his mouth to say something when she stopped him.

"I'll admit it. I was hasty," said Narcissa fairly. "But I couldn't bear to keep myself away from Ronald any longer. I dearly wished to join him."

"To _entrap_ him, you mean?" Hermione sourly retorted.

"He said yes of his own accord," said Narcissa calmly, but with an edge of frostiness in her voice now. "You can't deny that, even if you want to. The spells would not have worked, otherwise."

"Spell?" Ron parroted confusedly.

"The Trothplight and Consumation Charms," said Narcissa. "Those are all you really need for a magical common law marriage, you know, and since the Dark Lord knew by then that I had abandoned his cause, it would have been reckless of me to arrange a formal wedding ceremony. The quicker and more private, the better."

Hermione scowled, her eyes flashing. She glared at the matching iron bands on Ron and Narcissa's fingers. The runes on the rings weren't anything special: they merely identified the bearers and their wedded status. If these rings held any other properties, then they were legal and not magical.

"Why the rush to get married, though?" Hermione wondered aloud. "And why Ron?"

"Not for his money, I assure you," said Narcissa wryly, quirking her lips. Ron laughed.

"And not looks, either?" said Hermione.

"That _was_ a factor, actually," Narcissa replied. She smiled sidelong at Ron, who blushed. "A considerable factor, indeed, although not the only one."

Hermione blinked quizzically. She frowned and gave Ron an odd, searching look, as if trying to find some proof that Narcissa's claim could be at all credible. Her expression was slightly incredulous, but her cheeks went a little pink the longer she stared at Ron.

At length, she looked away and weakly shrugged it off.

"Well, whatever the reason," Hermione soldiered on, "I still can't say I approve of this. I know how the Trothplight Charm works, and the Consumation Charm is obvious just from its name." Her expression curdled, and she gave both Ron and Narcissa a filthy look. "They have to be performed during _coitus_."

Narcissa smiled and nodded serenely, not seeming even remotely abashed.

Ron blinked.

"Huh?" he said intelligently.

"During sex," Narcissa clarified. "Ideally, just before or after climax."

Ron's complexion become a scarlet to rival the vibrance of his fiery hair.

"Oh."

"Yes," Hermione said bitingly. "' _Oh.'_ You slept with her."

Her tone was almost accusatory, and Ron couldn't help responding defensively.

"I-I thought it was a dream!" he spluttered.

Hermione was little mollified by this, but Narcissa sighed and squeezed Ron's hand, a dreamy smile flitting across her lips.

"Ah, yes. It was like a dream for me, too," she simpered, planting a kiss on Ron's cheek.

Hermione seethed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Obviously, the pairing of this fic is Roncissa for better or worse, but considering how much Ron and Hermione's friendship was increasingly defined by the unresolved sexual tension between them as the books progressed, to pretend that there wouldn't be any drama from Ron suddenly hitching wagons with someone else at the end of book five would be supremely silly. Or something like that.
> 
> Also, it was a pleasant surprise for me to see the response this got. I know Ron is a disproportionately unpopular character in HP fandom, however much he is one of my personal favorites. Or at least, a lot of people either like Ron or hate him. And most of those who like him, it seems, do so chiefly to ship him with Hermione (which was admittedly one of my two HP OTP's for as long as I can remember, since before I even knew what shipping was).
> 
> So it was nice to see the first chapter of this crackfic in which Ron is 1.) a main character, and 2.) paired with Narcissa, get exclusively positive reviews. Hopefully, you guys will continue to enjoy it. :D
> 
> Updated: 3-24-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	3. Chapter 3

Breakfast was a fine affair, all things considered. Harry came back with a fair bounty of provender and greetings from Dobby. Narcissa got a thoughtful expression at the latter. Ron ate enthusiastically, and he offered plenty of food to Narcissa, who did not touch much herself. Mostly she just had some toast and an orange, which she washed it down with a cup of pumpkin juice.

"You have a healthy appetite, dear," she said to Ron, turning down his third offer of hash browns. "But I'm not that hungry, personally."

"Chu ernt gunna eef?" he said through a mouthful of bacon, staring at her.

Harry and Hermione, being used to Ron's relatively poor table manners, did not so much as bat an eyelash. Narcissa, somewhat surprisingly, seemed little more perturbed than they. Indeed, she smiled as though pleased or amused.

"I've eaten enough," she said airily. "It may seem a small amount to a hearty, growing wizard like yourself, but I've sufficiently broken my fast."

Ron looked mildly incredulous at this, and he raised a forkful of sausage. Swallowing what was in his mouth, he spoke.

"There's plenty for everyone," he insisted. "No point going hungry."

Harry smiled despite himself, reminded strongly of Molly Weasley's adamance in seeing all her family and guests well fed and stuffed full nigh to bursting. Hermione, also, couldn't help a gleam of amusement coming into her eyes at the odd similarity between Ron and his mum.

Narcissa smiled.

"Very well. If it will make you happy."

And leaning forward, she parted her lips—Ron was struck suddenly by how red they were, and the shape they made reminded him irresistibly of how they had looked in his dream, or what he had thought then to be a dream, as she mounted him and fell unto the fullness of her loins, and they looked so plump and soft that he wanted suddenly to taste them and take them and make her smile as widely and shamelessly as she had in their first joining.

But then Narcissa took the sausage into her mouth, and she looked at him with a twinkle in her eyes. He saw her suck on the meat for just a moment, pressing her lips close and gently lifting it from the fork. Raptly he watched as she took it delicately, suggestively into her mouth, before chewing slowly and thoughtfully, her eyes ever boring into his.

Ron's mouth went dry. Dimly, he was aware of Harry looking away uncomfortably, and of Hermione going pink in a way that had nothing to do with anger. He watched Narcissa swallow, and she licked her lips in savor of the taste. There was a mischievous gleam in her piercing eyes.

When, he wondered, had her hand got onto his lap? And when, also, had her body come so close to his? He could see her bosom heave within fine robes, and he recalled unbidden the sight of her naked body. Narcissa was bloody fit, and going by the look on her face she damn well knew it.

"Well, Ronald? Is that _all_ you have to give me?" she asked, her voice low and husky in a way that sent shivers up his spine.

Her hand edged a little further up his lap. Ron stiffened at her closeness, and he heard Harry's choking and Hermione's spluttering only as if across a vast distance. For all he knew in that moment, he and Narcissa were the only people for a hundred yards.

She was beautiful, and that dealt a heavy blow to his resistance, but more terrible a power still was the raw sexuality with which she infused her every word and deed. He had no will to match such a thing, not with how young and rash he was. Her eyes could slay him with only a glance, and with a touch her hands could make him forget all reason.

"It is while they're watching," he said dumbly, barely considering his words.

One of his hands laid itself over Narcissa's.

"Let them watch, if they want," Narcissa purred. "That will just make it more exciting."

Ron voiced no objection, not though Harry and Hermione let out strangled cries. He was distracted, noticing a bit of food on Narcissa's lips. It seemed to have escaped the search of her tongue, and this was not surprising. It was the tiniest scrap of the daintiest morsel, minuscule and insignificant. Only barely did his eyes catch it.

Yet on her lips, that scrap may as well have been the finest feast ever wrought by the Hogwarts house elves, and before he even knew what he was doing Ron found himself bending his head and drawing nearer. Perhaps he meant to pluck the crumb from her lips, or perhaps he was merely filled with a sudden desire to kiss his wife, as if the full meaning of the subtle vows now binding himself and Narcissa had finally sunk into his mind.

Harry was torn between staring and looking away. Hermione clapped her hands over her eyes, yet her fingers parted to let her peek out, and her face was redder than Ron's hair.

Narcissa smiled and craned her head. Young though he was, and still growing, Ron was already a head taller than her. Their lips were less than an inch apart...

"Am I interrupting?"

Minerva McGonagall spoke curtly and crisply.

Ron started and pulled back from Narcissa as though scalded. His face went an interesting shade of maroon. Narcissa was less abashed by comparison. Somehow, it seemed as if the color in her cheeks had not been born from embarrassment. Still, she too pulled away, if more slowly and grudgingly, and she cast a dirty look at the head of Gryffindor house.

Harry and Hermione were visibly grateful for the interruption.

"Yes, you are," said Narcissa. "My husband and I..."

An unreadable look passed over McGonagall's face. Her lips thinned as she looked from Ron to Narcissa, quickly comprehending the situation.

"You were quick to remarry," she said disapprovingly.

"For a witch to be widowed at my age is unseemly," was Narcissa's prompt reply. She gave McGonagall an almost scornful look.

"Less unseemly than some things," said McGonagall. "But no matter. I was not sent here to lecture you on propriety, even if I now wish that I had been. Still, Professor Dumbledore requires your presence."

She sounded as if she thought this to be much too generous a consideration on the headmaster's part.

Narcissa met McGonagall's eyes, and she took Ron's hand in hers. It was warm.

"My husband will come with me," she said in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

McGonagall's nostrils flared, and she looked penetratingly at Ron. He colored under her glare, but squeezed Narcissa's hand and nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "I, er... I think I should go with. Narcissa's my wife, so... um, her business is my business."

"Very well," said McGonagall testily. "Come along, then."

Ron got up with Narcissa, and he bade Harry and Hermione a mumbled, "Later."

They watched him go with mixed feelings.

* * *

There weren't many people in the halls. Most were either still at breakfast, or enjoying the start of a pleasant day out of doors. With no more classes or exams, students were blessed with that rare and brief period of freedom where they had no work to do and were yet also still with all their friends and not departed for home. There was no constraint on how they spent these last few days of term, besides staying within the bounds of Hogwarts.

Ron normally would have wanted to go outside with his friends and relax by the lake, perhaps sit under a tree and just enjoy one another's company. But he did not feel so interested in going outside at present. For the moment, he found himself pleased enough just with being in Narcissa's presence. The more the shock wore off, the more he found himself warming up to the idea, and to her.

She was nice enough, after her fashion. Maybe a bit... _bigoted_ , still, but it seemed like she really was _trying_ not to offend him or his friends, at least for the most part. She also seemed honestly glad to be his wife—well, she HAD been the one to come ask him, hadn't she?

Whatever Hermione thought, or Harry insinuated, it seemed to Ron that Narcissa found him genuinely handsome and funny and charming. She laughed at almost all his jokes, and even the really weak ones at least earned a tiny smile. And she was very forward with him, too, very warm and sensual...

Narcissa squeezed Ron's hand and gave him a smile. He returned the gesture and felt his heart skip a little. She really was quite fetching, and there was that same look of intelligence in her eyes as in Hermione's. She was bright and willful and determined to have her way. Ron could tell this just by looking into Narcissa's eyes. It was the same thing that had once drawn him to Hermione, but where Hermione didn't seem to show much interest and often talked down to him, Narcissa very obviously fancied him, and she flattered him with her attentions.

Ron was so lost in thought that he barely noticed McGonagall speaking to the gargoyles outside Dumbledore's office, and hardly paid any mind as he stepped onto the rising staircase. Only when they came to the door of the headmaster's office was Ron pulled out of his reverie, and he blinked owlishly as McGonagall held it open.

"Go in," she told them curtly, her eyes staring holes in Narcissa.

Ron was largely unfamiliar with Dumbledore's office. He'd been there a few times before, in second year after the Chamber of Secrets affair, in fourth year just before the second task, and what felt like an age ago in December, after Harry had woken up from a vision of his dad being attacked.

Ron's stomach twisted a little uncomfortably as his thoughts went from that to Harry's vision of Sirius, and what had happened as a result of that.

(He felt the marks on his arms twinge.)

But that aside, compared to what he had seen around Christmas, Dumbledore's office seemed more sparsely decorated. There was less clutter, somehow, and a few surfaces seemed almost bare. It was like several small things were missing that he'd never before paid much mind to, and only now noticed in their absence with a vague sense of something being off.

But maybe that sense came about from the presence of Draco Malfoy before the headmaster's desk, looking a mixture of upset and defiant.

Narcissa smiled at him. It was somewhat bittersweet.

"Hello, son," she said. For a moment, it felt like she was about to let go of Ron's hand and dart forward to pull Draco into a tight embrace. But then she looked at Dumbledore and seemed to master herself.

"Mother," said Draco, and he looked at Ron with thinly veiled disgust. Gray eyes fell to their hands, and something like understanding mingled with stubborn disbelief flashed through them. "What are you doing with _him?_ "

Narcissa brushed a strand of hair aside.

"He's my new husband," she said as if this was a matter of only mild importance, almost daring her son to make a big deal of it. "Say hello to Ron, dear. Ron, this is Draco. I believe the two of you know each other?"

She said this lightly, almost pointedly so.

Draco's lips curled. Ron, for his part, felt his hand spasm and tighten on Narcissa's.

"Yeah, we've met," said Ron.

"Yes," said Draco at the same time, speaking through gritted teeth.

Dumbledore smiled, but there was something unreadable in his eyes as they flitted over the trio. He adjusted his glasses, then clasped his hands atop a desk that seemed barer than it ought to have.

"My, Narcissa, you work quickly," he said in a conversational tone.

"I don't believe in drawn out courtship," Narcissa answered dismissively. "Blacks take what they want, no matter what anyone else might think."

"Hmm... Well, as long as you are both happy with it," Dumbledore said. "I'll admit, I had only meant to have you and your son here, but if you and Ronald are now married..." He looked searchingly at the plain iron rings on their fingers. "...then this is as much his business as yours."

For a moment, Dumbledore twiddled his thumbs and let his gaze wander around the room. He quietly hummed a cheerful half-tune, eyes twinkling inscrutably. At length, he spoke again.

"Your mother has concluded that your family has nothing more to gain from following Voldemort," he said, causing the witch and two young wizards in front of him to wince.

"She did, did she?" said Draco, looking shaken but not completely surprised. Indeed, his expression seemed to darken with something like understanding, and he shot an unreadable look at Narcissa. "So that's why father was killed."

"I could not save both of you," Narcissa said. She stood as motionless and immovable as a statue, her face undecipherable. "He was in Azkaban, but you were here. I had to choose, so I chose you. My son."

"And when did you marry Weasley?" Draco sourly retorted. "That seems a sorry way to honor father's memory."

Narcissa's expression twitched. It seemed... less than happy, for a moment. Sad, in a way, and resigned, but also faintly hard.

"I loved your father," she said, still holding Ron's hand. "I always did. But he was a distant man, and never especially warm. It only got worse with the Dark Lord's return. These last two years have been sad and miserable, and he was already marked for death. I simply divorced him before that could happen."

"She was adamant that I take you under protection, Draco," said Dumbledore serenely. "I do not think she would have taken no for an answer."

"Protection from _what?_ " Draco snapped, glowering.

"Voldemort and his followers, of course," Dumbledore answered. "Surely you are not so naive as to think he would leave you and your mother alone after your father's failures? No, that has never been his way, I'm afraid. He would have killed you to punish your parents, and I do not think he would have done so quickly or painlessly. No, he is not prone to mercy, and he most certainly does not forgive."

Draco still looked mulish, but he was a touch paler now. Dumbledore met the boy's faltering glare with a wan smile.

"Do you really think you can keep us safe from the Dark Lord?" Draco muttered. "If he really... if he really wants to kill us, then there's nothing _you_ can do to stop him. He's too powerful."

"I was able to stop him at the Ministry," said Dumbledore, affecting a modest tone of voice. "And he has not yet managed to kill Harry, despite several attempts to do so. The dark arts are formidable, Draco, but they are not the only great or worthwhile power in this world."

Fawkes crooned gently from his perch, the sound of the phoenix's voice both musical and heartening. Dumbledore's smile brightened.

"For instance," he said, "Despite many efforts, Voldemort was not able to learn the location of the Order's headquarters, was he? Kreacher could not tell your mother the address, though he intimated many other things, and she could not deduce it herself, either. Such is the power of the Fidelius Charm, that even knowing Kreacher dwelt in the headquarters, and knowing also the elf's nature, Narcissa could not add two and two together. The magic prevented her from thinking of that location, or connecting it to the secret."

Draco stared blankly at Dumbledore. Narcissa frowned, trying to figure out what he was saying. Now that he mentioned it, she felt like there _was_ something she should have known or been able to figure out, but there was something blocking it. The way he said it suggested that she knew of the place, and that knowing Kreacher was there she ought to have been able to figure it out, but it refused to click.

She could not find it in her mind. She could not deduce it. If she tried, she just pulled up a blank.

"The headquarters should suffice to hide you and Draco, if any place can," Dumbledore said. "In truth, it is convenient that you have come to our side, and that Bellatrix has died. With the passing of Sirius, I was worried that Number 12 Grimmauld Place might lose its protections, or that it might let in you or Draco or Bellatrix despite our magic, now that its previous owner is dead."

Narcissa blinked.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place... yes, she knew what that was, of course she, although she wasn't sure and couldn't BE sure why it was important to their discussion. Yet the way Dumbledore spoke, it seemed like it had... _something_... to do with... with... ... ...

...what _was_ the man talking about?

Narcissa shook her head. She felt confused. It was not a natural confusion, either, although she could not tell that. It was the magic of the Fidelius, confounding her and preventing her from linking _Number 12 Grimmauld Place_ and _Order of the Phoenix Headquarters_ together as one and the same in her mind. Not without being told explicitly that this was so.

Ron stirred beside Narcissa, looking at her with a slight confusion of his own.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," she said a touch vacantly, eyeing him oddly. "Why wouldn't I be, dear?"

"I dunno..." Ron said, frowning.

Draco looked between them with a scowl and a perplexed expression of his own.

"Number 12 Grimmauld Place is the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix," Dumbledore said. At once, Draco and Narcissa's eyes lit up as the mental block was finally dispelled and two and two came together. "And it will also serve as your safe house, at least for the summer."

Ron was the only one of the three to look less than happy with this. Narcissa appeared satisfied, as if many things finally made sense to her. Draco had a look of barely concealed eagerness on his face, maybe half of it from the thought of staying in the ancestral Black family home, and the other half at the thought of getting an insight to the Order's workings.

Ron thought of Sirius, though, and a pang went through him. He did not miss the man as much as Harry did, but he had liked Sirius all the same, and Ron was a little sad whenever it struck him that Sirius was _gone_. It reminded him a bit of when his uncle Bilius had passed away. He'd not been too close with the man, but his death had still been depressing.

Dumbledore looked at Ron, and distracting the redhead from his mildly melancholic musings, he spoke.

"Shall we go, then?"

Ron blinked. So did Draco. Narcissa seemed relatively unperturbed.

"What, _now?_ " Ron blurted out.

"The elves will have finished packing up your things by now," said Dumbledore. "You, at least, will be free to come back if you wish, Ronald, but it would be best if Draco and Narcissa go into hiding as soon as possible. Certainly, it would be unwise for Draco to stay another night in his dormitory. Some of his closest friends have family among the Death Eaters..."

This appeared to hit Draco like a brick.

"They'll think I'm a traitor," he murmured, going white. "If the Dark Lord knows about mother's desertion..."

"He may try to get at you through them, yes," said Dumbledore gravely. "It is a great tragedy that Slytherin house has become so closely intertwined with Voldemort and his movement, but Slytherin has always been something of a holdout for blood purists... an unfortunate product of Salazar's beliefs getting twisted and distorted over the generations, I fear."

Draco did not seem at all interested in the headmaster's opinion. He looked altogether dispirited.

"I can't go back there," he said. His voice broke with the realization.

Bizarrely, Ron found himself almost feeling sorry for Draco. Despite himself, he imagined being forced to cut ties with Gryffindor and all his friends therein. That was a horrible thought, and his stomach twisted at its mere consideration.

"It..." Ron started to say. _It'll be alright_ , he wanted to say, but the words died on his lips. He frowned. Instead, he grunted an obligatory, "Sorry."

That was the only thing he could think to say to this.

Narcissa squeezed his hand absentmindedly.

"It's not your fault," she said, as much to Ron as to Draco. "Lucius and I were taken in years ago. We let ourselves be fooled into thinking the Dark Lord aimed to restore wizards to their rightful place. But all he's done is diminish us, setting Britain's last remaining pureblood families against each other in an internecine conflict. _Tom Riddle_..." She said the name with bitterness and scorn. "His father was buried in a muggle graveyard. The last wizard buried there was Gerontius Gaunt, died 1547. I've done my research."

She said no more, though it was clear she had much more that she could have said. There was a fire in her eyes, and despite the questionable nature of her comments, Ron felt smitten by the intensity of her look.

But Draco looked aghast at her words.

"You aren't saying the Dark Lord is a _mudblood?_ " he softly hissed, looking around in a panic as though fearful that Voldemort would spring from the shadows and strike him down for this slander.

Dumbledore, for his part, frowned at the use of this word.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle is a half-blood," he said with a rare touch of firmness in his voice. "Son of Merope Gaunt and the muggle Tom Riddle Junior. But that should not be what matters. Indeed, his mother's family were of even purer blood than yourselves, but they were wretches living in squalor and possessing entirely negligible magical power. If you wish to judge Voldemort, then judge him by his actions, not his heritage."

Ron nodded absently at this after the obligatory flinch.

"Of course," said Narcissa, a little strained. But she smiled weakly at Ron, and at her son. "And that alone is enough reason to defect from his side."

Draco looked skeptical, but also shaken.

"Well," said Dumbledore at length, "I suppose it is time we made for Number 12."

Fawkes flew from his perch, and Dumbledore grabbed hold of the phoenix. He gestured for the others to follow his example. They did so. Ron had a good enough idea of what was happening, and Narcissa seemed to guess at it too. Draco looked bewildered, however.

But before the blond could so much as open his mouth to ask, Fawkes burst into flame, and they vanished from the headmaster's office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Here's another chapter. Dunno what else to say, unless maybe that I've recently considered getting back into Lord of the Rings Online. I haven't played for a couple years, after a server update caused me to lose various expansions that I had bought. That was really frustrating, and turned me off of the game for quite a while, though I had very much enjoyed it.
> 
> For reference, the last time I played, the Riders of Rohan expansion was still pretty new. I was just getting started in that when I lost my access to the quests there, and well... If the fellowship I was part of back then still exists, I will be amazed. Even moreso if I've not been chucked out of it, haha.
> 
> But that's not really relevant to this fic, either way.


	4. Chapter 4

THUMP!

They hit the floor of Number Twelve's entry hall.

Draco stumbled and smacked into Ron, a fleeting look in his eye to suggest that this might have been intentional. Ron bristled and pushed Draco off, but he did so less hard than he might have otherwise, since both Dumbledore and Narcissa were also present.

The former was quite unruffled. He looked like he did this sort of thing every day, and maybe he did. Narcissa was less collected, though not by a significant margin. Phoenixes were smoother than most forms of magical transportation. Fawkes, for hi part, alighted on Dumbledore's shoulder and folded his wings.

"Is this the place?" said Draco sullenly and a little loudly. He furtively shot a dark look at Ron.

"It looks a little different from how I remember it," said Narcissa, gazing around. "But yes, this is Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. I came here often enough when I was younger. I recognize it."

She also spoke a little louder than was advisable in this part of the house. Ron shot an uneasy look at the pair and tried to mime for them to keep it down, remembering how unpleasant Sirius's mum could be when disturbed. Narcissa noticed this and gave him a questioning look. He gestured to the curtains not too far away, and she frowned.

"Curious. There wasn't a door or a window there last time I was here," she whispered. "Not that I can remember."

"There wasn't," said Dumbledore in a similarly soft voice, "and there isn't. Your aunt's portrait is rather vocal, and not at all cordial."

Narcissa inclined her head, appearing to think.

"Yes, I can see that," she said at length. "She liked me well enough, but I know she could be very unpleasant to... certain kinds of people."

"She's a cow, you mean," Ron muttered.

He said this less quietly than he meant to, and Draco and Narcissa heard him. The former looked ready to retort venomously out of principle, but the latter covered her mouth and tried not to giggle. Her cheeks went a little pink, and her eyes seemed to brighten.

"That's one way to put it, I suppose," Narcissa said after she had mastered herself, her tone a touch cheerier. "I recall Aunt Walpurga used to be very, ah, _strongly opinionated_. I think I liked her well enough, but yes, she WAS a bit of a cow."

She winked. Ron's cheeks went red.

Draco huffed and looked at the row of mounted elf heads lining the wall.

Dumbledore led them quietly inside to the kitchen. After going through the door and closing it with a flick of his wand, he proceeded to explain the tentative arrangments. Draco and Narcissa would be staying in a couple of old rooms that had been cleaned out but put to no particular use. The Order would continue to use Number Twelve as their headquarters, but neither Draco nor his mother would be required to aid them.

"Not unless you have any intelligence you wish to divulge," Dumbledore added. "If you know anything that could help us in the fight against Voldemort—" Ron, Draco, and Narcissa flinched. "—it would be greatly appreciated."

"I understand," said Narcissa. "I've already told you most of what I know, but if anything else comes to mind..."

Draco glowered, looking surlier still, but he said nothing.

After that, Dumbledore explained the arrangements for Draco's continued education. While he could not safely return to Hogwarts, materials would be provided for him to study, and Snape and McGonagall would provide their teaching services when they had the time to spare.

Narcissa was pleased with this, but Draco significantly less so.

Furthermore, if Ron so wished and his parents did not protest, similar arrangements could be made for him, Dumbledore said. He smiled at them as he said this. Draco was the only one not to reciprocate to some degree.

"I'll be fine if you choose to return to Hogwarts, dear," Narcissa whispered to Ron, as Dumbledore moved on. "Your friends are there, and no one needs to know you are married to me."

"I'd like to," Ron said, glancing at Draco as he said this. He fidgeted. "But... it'd be a long time before we saw each other again, wouldn't it? I mean, when school starts again. It's almost done for this term, obviously."

"I'm sure Professor Dumbledore can make arrangements for you to visit when you have free time," was Narcissa's reply. "It's sweet that you want to stay here with me, I really appreciate the gesture."

She smiled genuinely, and Ron's cheeks flamed up.

"—now, before anything else, we should make a few final checks," Dumbledore said, speaking a little more loudly and giving the pair a knowing glance. "Draco," he said to the still quite gloomy blond, "call for Kreacher."

Draco looked confused, but Narcissa's eyes lit up in understanding.

"Aunt Walburga's house elf," she told her son. "He helped me, er..."

She trailed off, faltering as she remembered why this house was now likely to be in her or her son's possession. Her cheeks colored, and for just a moment she looked genuinely shamefaced. Dumbledore did not react to this, but Draco seemed to understand, or else he guessed the meaning of some of what his mother said.

"Creature..." he said, a little uncertain still. His tone grew more commanding as he spoke, remembering the way his parents used to order around Dobby. "No, Kreacher. _Come here_."

There was a faint pop, and a wrinkled old house elf appeared in front of them. He stared at Draco for a moment, before an unlovely face lit up with glee. He bowed low.

"Kreacher is happy to serve," the ancient elf said.

Dumbledore inclined his head.

"Give him a command," he told Draco.

Draco's eyes lit up, and he glanced maliciously at Ron for just a moment. His mother caught his eye, however, and she laid a gently warning hand on his shoulder. Draco's excitement was dampened a little by this.

"Fetch me something to eat," he ordered the elf, sounding slightly mulish.

"Of course, of course," said Kreacher, bowing lower and more enthusiastically still.

Dumbledore frowned minutely.

"Ah, but first," he interjected, "Let me see. Ronald, how about you?"

"Er, what?" Ron said.

"Give him an order."

Ron was confused by this, but since Dumbledore was eyeing him expectantly, he shrugged and addressed Kreacher.

"Don't say mudblood," he told the house elf, remembering how he had constantly insulted him and his friends during the summer.

Kreacher's face twisted. His eyes gleamed in defiance.

"Kreacher will say what he wants," he told Ron. "Blood traitors can't tell Kreacher what to do. He won't be ordered around by nasty Weasleys, oh no."

A strange look came across Dumbledore's face at this. He stooped low and stared at Kreacher, as if inspecting him. Ron looked at the old headmaster in bewilderment, and Draco seemed to understand this little better. Narcissa, however, was frowning thoughtfully.

"That is my husband you are speaking to," she told the elf. "Show him the respect he deserves."

Kreacher stared at Narcissa in astonishment, and there was something like disgust in his eyes. "They've got to you," he said in a low, harsh croak. Under his voice, though still quite audibly, he added. " _The blood traitors have polluted her head with their nonsense. She's not a Black anymore, oh no. If Mistress was still alive, the whore would be blasted clear off the tapestry, and it would serve her right..._ "

Ron felt a rush of hot anger flow through him at the elf's words, and not because of the aspersions on his family. He was proud to be considered a blood traitor. No, what made him angry was Kreacher daring to call his wife a whore. And it said something, perhaps, about how quick Ron was to enmity and love alike that already he thought of Narcissa as _his wife_ , and so felt this outraged at Kreacher insulting her.

Somehow, Ron's wand found its way into his hand. He puffed up and took a step forward, ears turning red and mouth opening wide. He looked thunderous.

A hand on his arm stopped him.

"No, dear," said Narcissa, giving Ron a slightly sad look. "It's not worth the effort."

In preventing Ron from doing something rash, Narcissa did not see Draco's face color, or notice her son's hand curling around his own wand. But Draco did not try to hex Kreacher. Instead, he drew himself up to his full height (taller than Narcissa, but shorter than Ron and Dumbledore) and raised his voice.

"Don't call my mother a whore," he said forcefully, proud and commanding in tone and mien.

Kreacher twitched. He turned and looked at Draco with squinting, watery eyes. He appeared somewhat sullen, and a tiny bit insolent.

"Master Draco is a good boy," Kreacher said. "He is a proper, self-respecting pureblood. His mother used to be the same, but now she's gone and married a dirty blood traitor. Kreacher wonders why she did it. Does she feel guilty about nasty, ungrateful Master Sirius? She shouldn't."

"She is my mother, _elf_ ," Draco said coolly, his eyes hardening. "It's not your place to judge her."

"Of course, of course," Kreacher murmured, wringing his hands as an odd gleam came into his eyes. "Kreacher knows his place. He is a proper house elf, and he would never dream to question the affairs of his betters. No, no, he is a good elf. Even if Mistress Narcissa spreads her legs for blood traitor scum, he is not allowed to speak up. But Kreacher does not complain, no, he simply does as he is told."

He licked his lips as he said this, setting a gimlet eye upon Ron and Narcissa. Draco looked at them also, and it was perhaps noteworthy that whatever he had said to silence Kreacher, he did not outright deny or contradict the elf's words.

Dumbledore watched all of this shrewdly, bright eyes flitting over the four before him. At length, after a substantial silence, he spoke up.

"Curious..." he said softly. "Most curious."

He did not elaborate further.

* * *

Dumbledore parted ways with them for a while, saying vaguely that he wanted to check up on a few more things. Kreacher, unceremoniously dismissed by Draco, disappeared with a low bow that did not wholly disguise the ugly look he gave Narcissa. Draco himself skulked off, muttering that he wanted to be alone.

This left Ron and Narcissa by themselves.

Narcissa looked a little pensive, but Ron did not ask why. She was glad for that, in a way. She did not want to talk. Not about this, and not right now. She did not want to think about that slightly unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach, or about the way Kreacher had so suddenly turned and scorned her.

You couldn't marry a blood traitor and not expect to be treated differently. Not when you came from a family like hers. She had known this kind of thing would come up, and she had expected to receive disdain from people on both ends of the blood purity debate, but knowing and expecting were not the same as experiencing. It was the kind of thing you only really understood once it had happened.

_Do I regret doing this?_

Narcissa could not help asking herself this as she sat in silence beside Ron. She looked askance at him, and she saw him absently rub his arms with a somewhat melancholy expression. He appeared to be lost in thoughts of his own.

Narcissa looked at his profile. He was not what some would call especially handsome. He looked very much like a young wizard, with his long nose and gangly build. His freckles were not just a light dusting, either, a cute speckling here and there. They were heavy, VERY heavy, and at some points so dense and splotchy that it was hard to discern the color of his skin beneath.

He was not terribly dashing, but neither was he unlovely. Indeed, there was a way in which he seemed most comely to her. His hair was vibrant, and his eyes were bright, and his face was apt to laughter. Even just looking at Ron, one could tell that he was coarse and vigorous in a way, not delicate or courteous, but as straightforward as he could be, and fairly passionate also.

Even from her brief acquaintance since their impromptu wedding, Narcissa knew that Ron was fond of jest. He liked to make light of things, and he often used flippant or sarcastic tones. She could also tell, less clearly but no less surely, that these mannerisms were like a sort of defense. He was not confident or very comfortable with himself. He used jest as a shield, deflecting more serious conversation with idle jokes.

He was interesting. The more she knew of Ron, the more she found to like about him. He was very different from Lucius. Much more impulsive, more vivacious, more vulgar. He spoke crudely and bluntly, unafraid to swear or speak his mind. Yet there was also an undercurrent of doubt and anxiety, a touch of something sad and bitter that could only barely be glimpsed.

She found him comely, and she enjoyed his body, but as she got to know him she found that she also liked Ron as a person. He could be abrasive, rude, and insensitive, but after around two decades of marriage to the outwardly courteous and well-spoken Lucius, Narcissa felt it to be refreshing.

She liked him. It wasn't love, perhaps, not so soon, but it was the seed of something that could become love. And she lusted after him, more importantly. Or not more importantly, exactly, but more pressingly, more _immediately_.

Love, such love as was considered ideal and expected between two spouses, took time to cultivate. But desire could spring forth at the first glance, and it required nothing more than simple, base attraction. This much she had, and that was enough. This was a marriage of convenience, and also perhaps an excuse to live out old fantasies.

 _Of course,_ Narcissa thought at length, looking up and down Ron's form. She leaned in close, looking at his face, remembering what she had seen of his naked body and feeling a quiet thrill. _Of course_ _I have regrets, more than I can count. But this isn't one of them._

She placed a hand high on Ron's lap. It rubbed his inner thigh through his robes, and he stiffened immediately at her touch. She saw him turn and meet her eye, his cheeks going pink beneath mottled, freckly skin. She kneaded his leg, squeezing pert flesh through worn black fabric, working her way in slow, exploratory circles up his lap and in between his legs.

With her free hand, Narcissa pointed her wand at the kitchen door.

" _Colloportus_ ," she whispered.

A lock clicked in the silence.

Then she flicked her wand at Ron's robes. They parted down the front, undoing themselves and falling off of his form like a sheet of rain, like the petals of a flower bud unfurling to expose itself to the world. Ron's robes draped over his seat, and he sat quite naked atop them, beet red and stiff as a board as Narcissa worked her way further up and in.

She set her wand aside and brought both hands to bear. She reached her destination, and the accomplishment was marked by a lusty gasp from Ron, then a slow, drawn out groan. Her eyes twinkled mischievously as she began to squeeze and stroke.

Narcissa felt him swell and harden in her hands, bulging and throbbing as she encouraged him to rise. And when he had reached his full height, a respectably impressive one, she hiked up her own robes and straddled his hips.

"We're alone," she said simply, in response to the unasked question floating in his eyes.

Ron could not find it in himself to protest. All he could say was a raspy, "Let's hurry."

She understood what he meant. If Draco or Dumbledore walked in on them...

She felt Ron harden further beneath her and throb more fiercely between her thighs. His face burned hotter still, and his eyes were a touch unfocused. He was considering this very same possibility, and it seemed to be exciting him as much as it frightened him.

It excited her, too, and she felt herself burning up. She felt the pleasant tingle of arousal, the slowly waxing drip of her juices as she bore her waist down, lining herself up with Ron's hardness. Her bosom heaved within her robes, and the skirt of her garment fell over Ron's lower body, hiding their approaching intercourse from view.

She felt excited. He was also excited.

They were eager for this. They both wanted it. They couldn't wait any longer.

For the first time since their secret trothplighting and marriage in the dead of night, Ron and Narcissa brought their bodies together. She grabbed hold of his arse, squeezing it tightly. Her fingers dug into his buttocks, kneading them appreciatively. He had quite a nice bum.

He reached up to her bosom, and somewhat hesitantly he grabbed one of her breasts through the front of her robes. Her breath hitched when he seized the globe, and she felt a most enjoyable shudder race down her back. He fondled her breast, massaging it in rapt wonder.

She moaned and shivered, and it was not feigned or played up.

Ron was clumsy and inexperienced, but he did not hold back very much. He was rash and heedless of most courtesies, and only a lack of confidence held him back from being a truly bold lover. But he grew more eager as he fondled her breast, as their hips melded together in a hot, wet, throbbing unison that turned their worlds into a starburst of carnal sensation, and as she smiled at him so slyly and leaned in close to plant a fierce, heavy kiss on his lips.

Ron was taller than her, taller by a fair deal, and Narcissa was not exactly short. He was not broad or terribly muscular, but still his arms had a certain wiry strength in them as they wrapped around her, and his body felt pleasantly firm beneath her. She felt comfortable in his arms, and she leaned back only to let him part the front of her robes, undoing subtle ties to bare a pale, voluptuous form.

He stared for a long moment at her breasts, which she allowed to dangle and slightly sway, the charm supporting them undone. Narcissa's bosom was fairly ample, and her hips weighed pleasantly down on Ron's lap. She enveloped him and pressed against him, and he filled her up and bucked his hips.

Ron was inexperienced, but as their joining lengthened he grew bolder and more eager, until he was thrusting and kissing and groping with a fervor that did much to compensate for his awkward, clumsy motions. She guided him with gentle strokes and quiet moans, smiling and silently instructing him in how to please her.

In this, if in nothing else, Ron proved to be a model student. He learned quickly, following her wordless instructions and adapting impressively to the unfamiliar but enjoyable experience of intercourse. He was good with his hands, and he possessed a certain exceptional vigor or virility that was by reputation peculiar to Weasley men. He reciprocated her deep, open-mouthed kisses with enthusiasm, and his hands roamed eagerly over her body.

Their joining seemed very loud in the silence of the kitchen, the wet squelching and meaty slapping of their sexes as they ground together in a steadily building rhythmic furor. To call it love-making would be too generously romantic; it was not such a tender, graceful, idealized thing as that. Husband and wife they may have been, but still there was something altogether illicit about their genital bondage, something delightfully furtive and shameful.

Draco would have been aghast to see them. He would have reacted loudly and explosively to the sight of his mother and Weasley fucking each other. Dumbledore would be less outspoken, and indeed he might have simply stepped back out the door and politely pretended not to have seen anything.

The only thing keeping anyone from walking in on them was a simple _colloportus_. Any witch or wizard worth even a fraction of their salt would be able to muster an _alohomora_ sufficient to undo it and unlock the door.

And if they were found, what then?

Narcissa moaned, exhilarated, and she drove herself longingly and passionately down upon Ron. Their tongues were sliding this way and that, exploring each other's mouths, rubbing and twisting together. She could taste him, she could smell him, she could _feel_ him.

Their hearts were racing. Their bodies were burning up. In and out and back and forth they went, their hips moving in a frenzied repetition.

 _Smack-smack-smack_ , their genders collided.

"Ron..." moaned Narcissa.

"'Cissa..." moaned Ron.

Their bodies seized up. They reached the pinnacle. As one, they hissed and swore euphorically, feeling their sexes convulse and blossom in an explosion of fiery warmth and electric sensation, like a stroke of lightning between their legs, and they were deafened to all else as if battered by roaring thunder.

They came together, a spurting and spraying and clenching and twitching. All sense left them, and they were rendered unthinking in those brief yet everlasting seconds of perfect bliss, the aftershocks and erratic bursts of pleasure like a chain of eruptions between them.

It slowed even as they lingered in that final instant of joining, loth to part, unwilling to draw back from each other, basking in the warmth of their bodies and the glow of their mutual orgasm.

Ron slumped, panting and sweaty and as red as his hair. His expression was vacantly happy: utter contentment. He barely had the strength to even lift his head.

Narcissa sighed and embraced him a little longer, lazily fondling a tight, freckled bum. She felt him shrink and soften and recede, and she tenderly kissed his cheek.

"That was good, dear," she told him. "You were splendid."

This was hardly an exaggeration, in her opinion, but perhaps it was just the afterglow talking.

Ron looked pleased either way, and despite his exhaustion he managed to puff up a little. Languidly, he stroked her breast and stared into her eyes.

"You look fantastic," he told her sincerely, looking her up and down from eyes to navel and back again. "You were great, too."

Neither of them said ' _I love you._ ' Both felt a desire to say it, and both wondered whether they should. Ron was held back by awkwardness, being uncomfortable with deep, emotional matters. If he said it now, he couldn't pass it off as a casual remark with no special meaning.

Narcissa hesitated because she felt like saying it now would be saying it out of obligation, and forcing an exchange for which neither of them was ready just yet. If she said it, she wanted to know they would both mean it.

She wanted him to say it first, if only because then it wouldn't feel like she was pressuring him if she said it.

So for now, they simply sat there and basked in each other's company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The second part of this chapter seems to me to illustrate how, even with crackfics and crack premises, I can't resist the occasional serious contemplation and exploration. In this case, my treatment of Ron and Narcissa's relationship. XD
> 
> Posting this just before I have to get ready for work, haha.
> 
> Updated: 4-19-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	5. Chapter 5

_I got married last night._

Ron looked up from the parchment and frowned. He crossed this out and started again.

_Do you know how you thought Bill would be the first of us to get married?_

He crossed this out, too, almost as soon as he had written it.

That wouldn't work. Mum would kill him if he reported this so nonchalantly.

"Blimey," Ron muttered. "How am I supposed to tell them?"

"Call them through the floo," Narcissa suggested, peering over Ron's shoulder at the letter he was trying (and rather badly failing) to write. "Or I can help you write the letter, if you want, assuming they haven't already heard from someone else."

"Hardly anyone knows about it," Ron said. "Who would tell them? Harry? Hermione?"

"Your dorm mates know," Narcissa reminded him. "And if Hogwarts students today are anything like they were when I was in school, then half the houses will know by now. Perhaps not the _truth_ , but there's no disguising the position we were in this morning."

Ron buried his face in the parchment.

"Maybe Ginny will tell them for me," he said half to himself.

He shuddered. This was a rather unpleasant joke, and a very frightening prospect.

* * *

 

Ginny gave Dean Thomas an incredulous look under a beech by the lake.

"Pull the other one," she said. "Ron? Really? He did _not_."

"I'm just telling you what I saw," Dean said, shrugging. "And what I saw was Ron in bed with some hot older witch. They weren't wearing many clothes, either. Make of that what you will."

Ginny continued to stare.

"You're taking the piss," she persisted. "Do you really expect me to believe a story like that?"

"Not if it was just a story, no," said Dean. "But this is the truth. Your brother was in bed with this blonde. I don't know who she was. I didn't recognize her. But she was real easy on the eyes and at least twice his age."

"I would have heard if he was seeing someone," Ginny said. "Ron isn't very good at keeping secrets."

"Isn't he?" Dean wondered. "He was in the DA with the rest of us, you know, and we kept that a secret for months."

Ginny waved a hand dismissively.

"That's different," she said. "Me and Ron grew up with Fred and George as our big brothers. We know how to keep rule-breaking a secret. But Ron is _obvious_ about girls. He can't hide his emotions at all. More importantly, _when_ would he have hooked up with this witch you're on about?"

"I don't know," said Dean. "But I can't imagine what other reason there would be for that situation. Maybe they were penpals? I know Harry got a lot of owls from all over the country after that article was published in the Quibbler, and some of them had photos, I hear. Maybe Ron took a liking to one of the witches and wrote back, and they started a romance or something, I don't know."

Ginny pursed her lips, still looking very skeptical.

"That's a stretch," she said.

"Can you think of a better explanation?" Dean said defensively.

"Sure. That it never happened," said Ginny without missing a beat. "I mean, _Ron?_ I don't believe it. I _can't_ believe it."

* * *

 

Now Ron felt slightly relieved, although he wasn't entirely sure why. He leaned into Narcissa's hand, and her cheek brushed his. Her touch was cool, yet it made him feel pleasantly warm. It was soothing.

Despite the bedraggled state of their clothes, and a certain glow still visible in their faces, it had been over an hour since they finished. Dumbledore had come back in half an hour ago, carrying a sheaf of parchment in his hand and looking intently thoughtful. He left shortly after that, saying that he had some other things he needed to check. But not before looking sidelong at Ron and Narcissa.

"Discretion is valuable," he said mildly, inclining his head. "I do hope you use more than a simple _colloportus_ next time, if you do not wish to be disturbed. Others might be less respectful of your privacy."

Ron had felt mortified at this. Narcissa, on the other hand, was unconcerned.

"They will respect it, or else," was all she said.

That had been a while ago. Ron and Narcissa had been by themselves since then. Draco seemed to be avoiding the kitchen, or else he was quite fascinated by the house itself. While practically all of the dark artefacts, cursed objects, and otherwise illegal effects had been disposed of, as well as a number of miscellaneous heirlooms for which Sirius had held only contempt, there was yet much to be found in Number Twelve that a born and raised blood purist like Draco might like.

Whatever the case, Narcissa had started chatting with Ron for a short time. It was a little awkward, for if the two of them had much in common it had not yet been made clear, and at any rate there were a number of topics they gingerly avoided. Mostly they talked about inane subjects, or inoffensive ones.

Quidditch was one to which they frequently returned. Narcissa was a fan of the sport in general, though hardly a fanatic, and she did not support any particular teams. This was helpful. Quidditch was something beloved to a great number of witches and wizards throughout the world, but in conversation that could make it a double edged sword. As with all things that evoked the passions of men and women, it could be divisive and a cause of fierce quarrels.

Ron was a big fan, and he tended to be stubbornly dogmatic in his opinions on the game. Narcissa was a fan of the sport also, but in a more removed sort of way, appreciating the skill and strategy that went into the game, and respecting the discipline that went into the training, but not having any strong opinions about the pettier matters tied to it.

So they could talk about Quidditch plays and tactics and famous games, of which Narcissa knew a fair amount. She did express bemusement at Ron's fervent support of the Chudley Cannons, and he responded with a passionate defense of the team and his love of it. Narcissa was not unmoved by the sincerity with which he spoke, even if he was not the most eloquent or tactful. There was fire in his words, and a light in his eyes, so that even if he fumbled or tripped over a sentence, or else failed to convey _literally_ what he meant, she could still feel the heat in his belly, and the fierce love behind his speech.

It was not sure, even to the two of them, how their conversation proceeded after that. The topics were a blur, however vibrant their discourse felt at the time, and afterward they remembered little save that it was pleasant. It can at least be said that somehow or other their talk turned at length to family, or else to the fact of their marriage, because Ron was made to realize that his parents would most assuredly have to be told the news of his wedding.

After that, he had somewhat anxiously assembled the necessary supplies and begun to write. Thus the account of their actions comes once more to the present, and the tale proceeds anew.

"I dunno. How are you supposed to tell people something like this?" Ron wondered. " _Yeah, I'm married now, just thought you should know._ "

He shook his head.

"Honesty is best, in these situations," Narcissa suggested. Then, remembering that her husband was a Gryffindor, she added, "I mean within reason, obviously. I don't think your parents would take very kindly to our union if they knew... _exactly_ how it came about."

Ron blushed hotly. It was clear that he certainly had NO intention of telling his parents every sordid detail.

Yet still he had to tell them something. It would not do to make this an unpleasant surprise, and it was foolish to think he could keep it a secret for any significant length of time. The sooner he put it out in the open, the sooner it would be over with.

But there was trepidation nonetheless, and he was naturally hesitant. This was a touchy matter, and it would not do to rush heedlessly. Even he knew that much.

Ron felt miserably uncomfortable as he tried to think of what to write. His mind wandered mutinously, refusing to let him concentrate on the task at hand, contemplating subjects as far removed from the letter as possible. In that manner, a thought crossed his mind, and he recalled something Narcissa had said.

About bank accounts. Gold. Inheritance.

Something niggled at the back of his mind, something that made him think of Bill, goblins, and Gringotts. Ron shook his head, figuratively shrugging it off, and daubed the point of his quill.

_Do you know how we've always been kind of short on money?_

He considered this idea, seriously considered it. Obviously this angle would be joking in tone, deflecting earnestness with tasteless jest, presenting a very serious matter in such a way as to play it off as less grave or severe. At the very least it would feel less emotionally stressful to present it as a joke, to tell it like he was gold-digging and no more.

Fred and George would appreciate that kind of thing. They'd probably laugh and carry the joke right on with him. Charlie would take it in decent humor, probably, maybe chuckle and say no more. Bill would give him a look, perhaps, that knowing-older-brother look he sometimes gave his younger siblings, at once respectable yet approachable, more stern that Fred and George yet more likeable than Percy, understanding the jest and taking no offense, but also silently addressing Ron and guessing much of what was in his heart.

If Percy was still on speaking terms with him, he probably wouldn't be for a good while after a joke like that, a joke like: _We need money so I decided to marry a rich older witch, and that's all there is to it._ Ginny might snort or chuckle, maybe, or maybe she would give him a dirty look. Once, Ron's sister had been fond of him, after her fashion, and they used to get on as well as could be expected, even a bit better. These days, however, she was more distant from him, and he from her. They had each their own friends and did not spend nearly so much time together, and he did not really know her as well as he used to.

Dad... well, he wasn't sure how his dad would take it. It was never easy to tell with him, save that he rarely got _mad_. Mum would kill him, though. She would be furious beyond description if he dared try and excuse this with such a tasteless joke. There was no mistaking that.

Still, he could not think of anything better. His mind refused to conjure any suggestion more acceptable.

Narcissa read it over his shoulder with an amused look.

"Do you think that will make them accept it?" she asked pleasantly.

"No," Ron said. "Bloody hell, no, it won't. But I haven't got any better ideas, have I?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something, dear," said Narcissa airily.

Ron still seemed decidedly less confident.

* * *

Bill did not feel comfortable behind a desk. He was an adventurous soul by nature, less irrepressible than Charlie, perhaps, but no less active. He had a good head for arithmancy, and he could do the sort of menial accounting that goblins considered beneath themselves, but he did not relish such work. If it were not for obligations to his family and the Order, as well as a strong sense of duty, he would still be doing curse breaker work in Egypt.

But You-Know-Who was alive and killing, and he was at war with all decent folk in the wizarding world once again, and Bill could not bear to stay away from his family in a time like this. He had responsibilities superceding his own desires, and also a strong sense right and wrong. He would do his part in this war, if only because the Death Eaters were a threat to his family, and to anyone who didn't fall in step with their backwards way of thinking.

So he now worked in a small office at the main branch of Gringotts, doing much less interesting and engaging work than he had in Egypt. It was dull, repetitive, and redundant, the kind of work that muggles foisted off onto their computing machines. Goblins wouldn't let wizards handle any _important_ information, even wizards they liked, and they absolutely did not trust anyone but their own kind with access to the vaults. They only gave wizards the dangerous or boring work.

Still, he had found at least one thing to like about his new job in London. It had introduced him to Fleur. He loved her dearly, not least because of her kind and honest heart, and she was a capable witch in her own right, too. She was a whiz with charms and enchantments, and quite a quick learner. It did not hurt, either, that she was one quarter veela and _stunningly_ gorgeous.

But whatever the case, Bill was doing his job, looking over general accounting work while Fleur checked the numbers, when the door to his small office opened and a goblin came in.

"Bill Weasley?" said the goblin, black and beady eyes flicking over the room's occupants.

Bill looked up and met the goblin's gaze. He did not recognize him, but he did not look especially important, so that was probably fine.

"Yes?" Bill said. "That would be me."

The goblin looked askance at Fleur. Then he looked back at Bill.

"I am here about the transfer," he said.

"Transfer?" said Bill, perplexed.

He'd thought that was finished. He had gone through all the paperwork for his transfer from Egypt to Britain practically a year ago, and he hadn't heard anything else about it for several months.

"Yes," the goblin said, looking down at a roll of parchment grasped in gnarled, clawlike hands. "My superiors felt it would be appropriate to obtain your cooperation in regards to the transfer of the contents of..." He scanned the paper with an odd look in his eye. "...the Malfoy and Lestrange family vaults into the Weasley family vault."

He looked up from the parchment and eyed Bill a touch balefully, concluding this.

Bill, for his part, rejoined with an expression of complete bewilderment.

"Er... Pardon?" he said hoarsely.

"There is also the matter of Narcissa Black's private account being opened to—" The goblin checked the parchment again. "— _Ronald Weasley_ , but I suppose that is more a private matter for the bride and groom."

Bill stared.

"You've lost me," he said. "I must have misunderstood what you said, because it _sounds_ like you're saying my baby brother is married. And... to Narcissa Black? Are you talking about a different Narcissa than the one I'm thinking of?"

Bill's mind went to the family tree on that tapestry in Number Twelve. He had only noticed one Narcissa on the thing (though of course he'd not spent more than a few idle moments on it) and that had been the wife of Lucius Malfoy. So he was naturally bemused.

The goblin cocked his head. "Do wizards not share such matters with their families?" he asked a hair disdainfully. "It seems like something that should be known to the entire house, particularly when it involves such a considerable amount of treasure."

His lips curled, baring pointed teeth.

"We do," said Bill. "Normally we do. That's why there must be a mistake. I mean, _Ron?_ And you don't mean the wife of Lucius Malfoy, do you, when you say Narcissa Black?"

"The former wife," said the goblin sharply. "And there is no mistake. Gringotts does _not_ make mistakes in matters like this, not when this much gold is involved."

"O-Of course," Bill said, going pink. "But I still can't believe it."

"Whether you believe it or not," said the goblin tersely, "the magic is clear. At quarter past one in the morning, our accounts recognized R. B. Weasley as the new husband of Narcissa Black. The paperwork has now also gone through, and we are consolidating the relevant accounts as per standard policy."

Bill looked like he was at a loss.

"Merlin's saggy arse cheeks," he muttered. "What? How? I don't even..."

Fleur looked concernedly at Bill.

"Are you well?" she asked.

"Fine," Bill grunted. "Just confused." He turned to the goblin. "You're absolutely positive this is genuine, though?"

"Beyond the shadow of a doubt," he sniffed, clearly taking umbrage at the fact that Bill was disbelieving him and entertaining the idea that the goblins of Gringotts could somehow be hoodwinked or deceived. "But if you think it could be otherwise after working with us for this long..."

"I'm sorry," Bill said. "It's not that I think you've got it _wrong_ as much as it is I can't understand HOW what you're suggesting could possibly be true."

"I don't pretend to understand the innumerable absurdities of wizard courtship," was all the goblin said in response. He then turned on his heel and made for the door. "Present yourself to Ragnuk by quarter to one. He will be waiting outside your family vault."

Bill nodded his understanding of the instructions.

"Right."

Once the goblin had left and closed the door, Fleur turned to Bill and spoke.

"Ronald is your littlest bruzzer, is 'ee not?" she said, frowning thoughtfully.

"He is," Bill answered. "You've met him before, remember? During the Triwizard Tournament. He's friends with Harry."

"Ah, _oui_ ," Fleur said, recognition in her eyes. "I remember, now. So 'ee is married, now? That is a surprise."

"Yeah," Bill said. "It is."

He frowned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Here's a chapter, I guess. Dunno what else to say. Been playing lots of games and writing less recently, so stuff is coming out slower. That happens, sometimes.
> 
> Updated: 5-14-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	6. Chapter 6

The farewell of Ron and Narcissa in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was one quite fitting to a pair of newlyweds, if not entirely appropriate to be done in the presence of the headmaster and their son. And _their_ son it is said, although the thought was even more surreal to Ron than his marriage to Narcissa, and also had fewer benefits attached. But husband and wife said goodbye for the present, and they lingered for as long as they could remotely justify in each other's arms.

"See you soon, Cissa," he said, holding her in a tight embrace, after a kiss that had been only barely chaste. They kept their hands in check since Draco and Dumbledore were present, but still there was a touch of fresh fire in their eyes, and they could not pretend that there was no enjoyment in their contact. Their bodies were also pressed closer together than was necessarily proper.

Dumbledore smiled blandly and patiently, standing with Fawkes at his shoulder. Draco looked sour-faced at the sight of Ron and his mother embracing so _intimately_ , but he waited stiffly for them to finish and said nothing.

"I know it'll only be two days, but write if you can," Narcissa said once they had broken off and stepped apart.

"I will if Pig isn't taken hostage," Ron said, only half joking. "Mum won't be too happy when she gets our letter, or I don't know anything about anyone."

"I can imagine," said Narcissa wryly. "If I weren't under house arrest, I'd go and talk to her about it myself. As it is, I fully expect to receive a howler within the day." Ron frowned at this, looking like he thought he should say something, but Narcissa waved a hand dismissively. " _Don't worry about it_. I deserve at least that much."

Ron smirked.

"Because you're a cradle-robbing temptress?" he said teasingly.

Narcissa's eyes glittered, and her lips quirked up at the corners. She winked.

"Most _certainly_."

Draco fought the urge to gag.

* * *

When Ron left Dumbledore's office, it was getting late into the day and the sun was well past its zenith. But the weather was good, and once he had done a quick check of the common room he concluded that Harry and Hermione must be out on the grounds. So he made his way as inconspicuously as he could down to the entrance hall. There were a few people in the corridors, but not many.

Still, he noticed several of the students he passed giving him strange looks. It made him self conscious, and associating their looks with his disappearance for much of this day and the doubtless rumors of the scene in his dorm that morning, he felt his cheeks grow steadily warmer. In truth, it was likely that most of the people who stared did so rather because of the break in at the Ministry, and the scars on his arms that the sleeves of his robes could not wholly conceal.

In other words, they stared at him chiefly because he was known to be Harry Potter's Best Friend and nigh constant companion, and obviously one of the persons to have been involved in that astonishing affair. Had Ron known this, he would have been torn between a swell of pride and even greater embarrassment. His performance in the events at the Ministry proper had been less than excellent, in his opinion, and while he could perhaps puff up in the knowledge that he had stuck by Harry and gone on that crazy, ill-fated mission, the details of his performance against the Death Eaters were nothing to brag about.

He didn't actually recall much of it past the first engagement in the Hall of Prophecies. He could remember running out with the others, casting wild spells at the black shapes behind, and tumbling through a door into a room, before it got all jumbled. From what the others had been willing to tell him, with varying levels of delicacy, Ron understood he was hit with a curse that sent his head funny.

Past that, those who had been with him wouldn't say much. Ginny was the least reticent on the matter, but the most she told him was that if she hadn't know he was under the effects of a Death Eater's curse, she would have smacked him. Seeing the look he gave her at this, she then clarified that he'd just been acting drunk and stupid. _"I might have had a laugh at your expense if we weren't busy fighting for our lives,"_ was how she described it.

She also implied, perhaps without meaning to, that his scars had been in some way self-inflicted, or a direct result of his actions while under that unidentified spell. That was not something Ron had been glad to hear, and he'd not since asked for any further particulars. It is needless to say, therefore, that he feelings would have much more conflicted had he known the true reason that he attracted so many more stares than usual as he headed out to the grounds.

As it was, he still felt a little embarrassed when he got outside and started looking for his friends. Not of the fact that he was married, in itself, nor particularly of the fact that it was to a woman old enough to be his mother (if still several years younger than his actual mother). The more he got to know Narcissa the more he liked her, and he certainly wasn't going to complain about her looks.

No, while he was embarrassed for sure, it was only in a vague and general sort of way. It was an awareness of the suddenness of his marriage, perhaps, and the particularly sordid circumstances of the union which he himself still did not completely understand, although Narcissa had explained her actions to him the best she could. He was not ashamed of Narcissa or their marriage, but he did nonetheless feel... _reluctant_ to spread the news just yet.

Were he usually capable of such coldly rational reasoning, he might explain this away as prudence on the grounds that Narcissa was under the protection of the Order, in hiding from You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters. But he was not, and really it ultimately came down to a mixture of youthful confusion and insecurity, and a rough but earnest sense of propriety.

So it was with an air of awkward self-consciousness that Ron Weasley came upon his friends. Harry was sitting with a Hermione and Neville, and Luna was there too. Ginny was nearby, seated alongside Dean Thomas. Ron noticed a touch of distance between the latter two, though they still sat rather close.

Casting his gaze wider, he saw pockets of familiar but (to him) nameless students. Seamus Finnegan wasn't too far from the group, and he was chatting rather animatedly with a visibly gobsmacked Lavender Brown. Padma and Parvati Patil were somewhere around there.

A lot of DA members were in this general area, Ron noticed, even if they were spread out a good bit. There were at least a few yards of space between each knot of people, and further out from the lake shore they grew more scattered.

Harry was the first to notice Ron. He looked around at the first sound of footsteps on the grass, or maybe he'd just been glancing around periodically. He certainly looked expectant as he surveyed the grounds, a touch impatient perhaps for something to happen. When his eyes lighted on Ron, though, he half shot up out of the grass.

"There you are," he said, looking at Ron.

"Where did you think I'd be?" Ron answered on reflex. He nodded, then. "Hey, guys."

Those nearby looked up at Ron. Some waved. A few grinned, but not all. Lavender Brown frowned in his direction and scooted closer to Seamus. Ginny looked ready to come over and give him a talking to, or else pull him aside and interrogate him. Hermione was welcoming enough, but a bit reserved in her expression.

"Hello," said the last with a curt but not unfriendly nod. "Everything's fine, then?"

"Fantastic," said Ron flippantly, but also more honestly than not. "They've been settled in."

Everyone present showed some degree of confusion at this, though Harry and Hermione seemed to guess closer to his meaning than the rest. Unsurprising, since they knew more of the details than the rest.

"Who was she, then?" blurted out Neville, who looked at Ron with an expression somewhere between awed and bewildered.

Harry and Hermione tensed, but nobody noticed them. The others who had been in the dorm that morning yet knew no more of the matter than what they'd seen, Dean and Seamus, also came closer, looking intensely curious.

Ron felt his face grow hot, for his part, and he fidgeted nervously.

"Er—that's private," he mumbled, feeling more awkward than ever.

Naturally, rather than deterring inquiry this only encouraged it, and soon Ron found himself inundated with questions from every side. Only Harry and Hermione spared him—they, and Luna Lovegood. With her pale, watery eyes and usual dreamlike expression the blonde surveyed him, unblinking and bizarrely knowing, her processes and reasoning utterly inscrutable if only for how far they were from the norm.

She smiled in that eery, almost vapid way of hers when Lavender suggested that the woman had been a spy at the same time Neville swore he knew her face from somewhere, and calmly and slowly and none too loudly, yet still somehow so clearly and confidently that everyone there hearkened to it, she said:

"Isn't it obvious, though? Clearly she must have been his wife."'

Dean and Seamus snorted back their laughter. Lavender gave Luna a vaguely condescending sort of look, the kind one might give to an innocent young child who betrays their considerable naivety. But Neville eyed Luna thoughtfully, and Ginny looked torn between backing her friend up and trying to brush aside Luna's words.

The other DA members had come round, now, however, and they heard Luna's words and saw the looks on Harry, Ron, and Hermione's faces at the blonde's declaration. Ernie Macmillan, as pompous as ever, strode up and congratulated Ron, seizing his hand and firmly shaking it with perfect cordiality, as though this was nothing at all out of the ordinary.

And when Ron didn't try to correct Ernie or refute Luna's claim, the rest of the DA reached the same unbelievable yet apparently accurate conclusion. Then Ron found himself buried under a sea of questions and congratulations, and everything became a blur of inquiries, pleasantries, and undisguisedly incredulous faces.

He could not begrudge their disbelief.

* * *

After an evening spent vaguely explaining, to the best of his abilities, how he and the woman in his bed had wound up husband and wife, to the dissatisfaction of several of the listeners who wanted clearer or more explicit details yet got only general allusions, particularly in regards to his wife's identity and how the two of them had met, Ron retired to the Gryffindor common room with Harry and Hermione. He did not go down to dinner, much to the surprise of his friends.

"'m not hungry," he said evasively in response to their queries. "I had some stuff to eat at—" He tried to say the address, but it seemed the second years in the far corner could hear them, because the fidelius charm would not let him get the words out. After two abortive tries, he shrugged and gestured irresolutely. "—Well, you know."

Harry frowned perplexedly, indicating that he did _not_ know, but Hermione was quick to pick up on it, and she whispered into Harry's ear with a hand over her mouth. He blinked, then, and nodded in understanding.

"Is that where..." he looked furtively around the room, checking to see no one was listening in. There were a couple younger students watching them reverently, and doing a very poor job of hiding it at that.

Ron gave the kids a impatient look and waved them off. They scurried out of the room, chattering excitedly.

"Where what?" he asked Harry, once they had gone.

"Where Malfoy went," Harry said. "Is that where he disappeared to? I haven't seen him all morning, and some of his mates have been acting strange."

Ron nodded.

"He's in hiding, then?" said Hermione, a strange look in her eye.

"Yeah, after what's happened I reckon You-Know-Who wouldn't be too friendly with the git, and half his mates are as good as Death Eaters."

Hermione gave Ron a somewhat reproving glance.

"I don't think it's appropriate for you to talk about him like that," she said. "You're his _father_ now. You should set a better example for him."

"Bloody hell," Ron said, "Don't remind me. That's the horklump on the lawn, that; the one thing I regret in this whole deal. I don't want anything to do with Malfoy, but they're a package deal, him and his mum. Can have one without the other."

"It could be good," Harry said half-heartedly. "You can just ground him if he gets out of line."

"I guess I could, couldn't I? It's a weird idea, though. Mum was always the one doing the grounding and stuff, in our own family. Dad usually just sat back and let her go to work." Ron frowned. "I dunno, but Malfoy's too old for spanking, or else I'm too young to spank him. I don't fancy doing _that_ , either way."

Harry grimaced, appreciating what Ron meant. Hermione reddened.

"I don't think spanking would be appropriate in any circumstance," Hermione said a touch airily. Her eyes were far off, though, and her cheeks were flushed. "It's a bit, well... barbaric, isn't it?"

"Didn't do us any harm," Ron said, shrugging. "I mean it's not exactly fun, but that's the point, isn't it?"

"Well, your parents are nice enough people, and I'm sure they never hit you seriously," Hermione said fairly. "But... no, never mind. Let's not have _that_ conversation."

Ron did not dispute this, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. That was a bullet narrowly dodged. Hermione still had an odd, remote look in her eye, however, as though she were preoccupied with some fascinating mental image. Belatedly she shook her head.

"What do you plan to do about the marriage, though?" she asked, concretely changing the subject. "You still have two more years of school before you."

"I've done my OWLs," Ron said. "And I come of age next year."

"Late in the year," Hermione said. "You don't have any career plans either, do you? You'll be most of the way through sixth year, and by that point there's really no reason why you shouldn't stick through to the end."

Ron flushed. "We can figure something out," he said at length. "I don't want to leave Cissa alone all next year, though. Dunno if I want to be _away_ that long, either. It's... different from family, a wife is. More..."

He gestured uncertainly, at a clear loss for words to describe it. Harry, who'd had some brief experience in the ups and downs of relationships thanks to Cho Chang, nodded vaguely. Hermione also looked relatively sympathetic, if a little tense at the same time.

"You've really warmed to her, haven't you?" Harry said both cautiously and understandingly. One because he still wasn't sure how to feel toward Narcissa, and the other because he was in many things similarly-minded to his friend, and generally wished for his happiness.

"It was hot from the start," was Ron's response, characteristically callow yet not insincere. "If anything, I'd say I've cooled. But that still leaves me real warm, and I feel... well, soft for her, you know? It's not just..."

He gesticulated somewhat crudely with his hands, causing Hermione to blush and look faintly disapproving. Harry nodded slowly.

"You get on with her?" he said.

"Better than I would've expected," Ron answered. "Loads better."

"You can't have much in common, though," Hermione interjected a hair disbelievingly.

"I don't know," Ron said, frowning. "I mean, sure there's subjects we don't touch, and stuff I'm sure we wouldn't agree on, but that still leaves a lot. She... well, it's not that she understands me, I don't think. We're different, and in some pretty big ways. But she tries, and she's so _fierce_ , and when her eyes focus on you it makes you..."

He shivered, and not from any sense of unpleasantness.

"I can't help but want to be a good husband when I look at her, and she's serious about being my wife. I can feel it when we touch. There's just... a _fire_ in her, or some sort of eckletricity that lights up between us. She's hot and cold, cool and warm. She can be real quiet and above it all, but then there are times when she gets this look in her eye and smiles at me, and she seems to melt away, and it makes me turn into warm butter when I see her like that.

"I dunno how much is serious, or how much she really means. Maybe it's just a ploy to keep her and Malfoy safe, and maybe she doesn't really care about me that way," Ron said. He was a touch grim in his manner as he spoke those words, but his eyes flickered and flamed. "Maybe that's what you'll try to tell me. Maybe that's what you're thinking. _But I don't want to hear it_. I'm sure I sound like a complete prat, but I can't help it. I'm in love," he breathed, staring into the fire. "I think I really love her."

He seemed as bemused by these words as his friends were, and Harry and Hermione stared at him. They were visibly taken aback by his passionate outburst, and he himself soon looked quite embarrassed.

"Bloody hell, where did all that come from?" Ron muttered, passing a hand over his face. "Merlin. I feel... I dunno. I don't have words for it. I like being around her, and she makes me feel good— _about_ things, I mean. About _everything_. But just listen to me! I've become a total sap. I can't stop _talking_ about her, and _thinking_ about her. I'm terrible. We haven't done anything but talk a lot and fuck a bit, but I've completely lost it."

Hermione reddened at how baldly Ron put the last part. She stared into her lap, not quite able to meet the eyes of either young man; her lips were pursed, and her arms were folded. Harry looked thoughtfully at Ron, not quite frowning, but with a set jaw and searching eyes. He nodded at length and clapped his friend on the shoulder.

"Congratulations, then," he said. His eyes were a touch distant, and his face seemed less jovial than his tone, but it was only a slight discrepancy, a mere impression of some distraction that drew his thoughts away. "Here's hoping your mum takes the news well."

Ron laughed weakly.

"She'll kill us," he said. "One of us, at least. Maybe partly because of who Cissa is, but mostly because she didn't get to arrange a proper wedding." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. "You know what she's like."

Harry and Hermione shared matching looks at this remark.

Ron dozed off with a contented smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Got Skullgirls on Steam yesterday in an impulse buy. It's fun, if frustrating to pull off the special moves, either because I am bad, or my controller is subpar, or the game just really lags on my laptop sometimes. Which is annoying, since that laptop is a 2016 Lenovo which I bought assuming it would be more powerful than my aging Dell Latitude D620, but I swear to God either the laptop itself is completely underpowered for a cutting edge machine, or Windows 10 is an ungodly inefficient operating system that eats up preposterous amounts of CPU with all its bloody apps.
> 
> I'm inclined to think the computer itself is just shoddily made, since from day 1, for instance the A key on it has been dreadfully unreliable and only sometimes acknowledges that it's been pressed. Mind, I am no computer expert, but I guess I just felt like venting a little. But I have a touch of a history with that, I mean, buying a new computer only to find it's nothing like what I expected...
> 
> Well, whatever. Here's a new chapter, more importantly.
> 
> Updated: 6-5-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	7. Chapter 7

The last day of term came and went. A good (if somewhat somber) farewell feast was had, and the students were sent home on the Hogwarts Express. Little could be said about the ride to London. As all the other times before, Ron and Harry and Hermione enjoyed their last hours together before the weeks of separation that came with summer break.

Hermione seemed to have let go of her annoyance with Ron's marriage, and was once more as friendly as ever. They played exploding snap and talked about their plans for the summer. Harry seemed a little distant, and faintly morose, but Ron and Hermione put this down to the death of Sirius. Either way, they had a decent enough time, setting aside all worries about the future to enjoy the present while they could.

(Luna, Ginny, and Neville were there, too.)

A brief tussle ensued when Crabbe and Goyle came into the compartment demanding to know where Malfoy had disappeared to. It was clear from the looks on their faces that they did not come as friends of Draco, and had the occupants of the car been unarmed muggles the duo might have been quite intimidating.

But against trained witches and wizards armed with wands, physical size and strength were really only useful if accompanied by innate resistance to magic. And for all their resemblance to the like of trolls and giants in manner, smell, and wit, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle were ultimately just dull, musclebound humans outnumbered 3-to-1 by persons with superior intellect and magical prowess.

Leaving the pair's shapeless, hex-riddled forms groaning on the compartment floor, Ron and friends disembarked.

Ron was almost immediately caught up in a whirlwind of red hair and freckles, accosted by family members with everything from congratulations to expressions of disbelief to churlish disapproval. Mrs Weasley was the most vocal and forward of the pack, and she seemed to vacillate between ill-disguised annoyance and tearful sentimentality. She flipped rapidly back and forth from one state to another, enough words and energy to equal the whole rest of her family.

Harry and Hermione were only able to say their goodbyes after waiting several long moments for the chaos that was the Weasley family to die down into a relative stillness. Then, after a final farewell, and with a promise to meet again as soon as may be, the three friends parted ways.

Ron was then taken by hand and led out of the platform with his luggage and Ginny's in tow. It took him a moment of mentally counting heads, once they were outside in King's Cross Station, and a second look at the hand holding his, to realize that one of the people here was a stranger to him. She was a redhaired woman with freckles, looking like she might have been an older female cousin, but Ron could not recall any cousins who looked like this.

She put a finger to her lips when he was about to speak, and something about her posture and the look in her eyes caused him to go silent, almost as if with a sudden recognition. His mum looked distastefully at his hand, which was being held by this woman, but most of the rest of his family seemed, at least presently, to be ambivalent.

They loaded themselves and their stuff onto the Knight Bus. Ron was somewhat surprised by this, because the fare for the whole lot of them seemed like it should have been prohibitively high for his family's tightly managed finances. But there seemed to be no problem about the cost, and they crowded into a niche between other, smaller families that had also chosen to take the bus home from King's Cross.

It was a bit before they took off, though. Others were still coming on, and the bus's interior space was stretched to its limits to accommodate them all. Ron watched the influx with some slight degree of growing apprehension, wondering how things would turn once they were home.

For that matter, he briefly wondered _where_ his home now was. At the very least, his wife lived in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. And thinking of his wife, he turned to the unfamiliar redheaded woman who was still holding his hand. Something about her sly smile confirmed his suspicions, and he nodded silently.

They said nothing, but they didn't need to.

He knew this was Narcissa.

* * *

The Weasleys got off at the Burrow. Narcissa's hair was growing lighter when they went inside the house. Ron felt self-conscious about their surroundings and worried what his wife would think of them, but Narcissa was perfectly tactful and pleasant. He asked where Draco was, and she said he'd stayed behind at the headquarters with Snape, who had dropped in as soon as the students had been sent off on the Hogwarts Express.

Ron was concerned at this, but Narcissa brushed off his worries with a calm smile and a few confident words. Her face was back to its native shape shortly after they were inside the house, and Ron was lost in quiet appreciation of this fact when his dad interjected.

"Well, Ron," Arthur said in a tone that screamed awkwardness in every syllable, nervously clearing his throat. "Er, and Narcissa. Sit down, why don't you? It's about time we had a short talk."

Bill was present, and so was Fleur Delacour, oddly enough (although it took Ron several minutes to notice her presence). Fred and George were there too, and Ginny as well, obviously, plus their parents Molly and Arthur. Only Charlie and Percy, of the immediate family, were not in attendance.

The den was fairly crowded, yet also quieter than Ron could ever remember hearing it. When his siblings (and Fleur) were subsequently dismissed from the room, it did little to alleviate his anxiety.

A long, awkward silence reigned as the four remaining settled into seats.

Molly looked despairingly from her youngest son to his wife. She seemed tired rather than angry, as though she had exhausted all her emotions at King's Cross, and Ron was unsure what she would do or say. He had received no response to the letter he had sent his parents informing them about his and Narcissa's sudden marriage.

Arthur looked thoughtfully at the plain, rune-scribed iron band on Ron's ring finger. His expression was neutral, not forcibly so but naturally, as if he had no clear opinions about the present state of things. His eyes were intent and contemplative, and if there was anything to note about his mien then it was only the complete seriousness.

"You're married," said Molly in a soft, barely audible voice, addressing her youngest son.

"I am," Ron answered, almost without thinking.

"To... _her_ ," Molly continued, looking askance at Narcissa. Her expression was worth a million words, and very few of them were positive. "When? How? _Why?_ "

"Not long ago at all, we assure you," Narcissa courteously replied. "Sometime in the morning of the day we sent you the news."

Molly pursed her lips.

"I can't say we approve of this," Arthur said, looking steadily at his son. "It doesn't seem... well, like something you ought to have done. Not so suddenly, at least. How did it happen? I can't believe the two of you were in contact for very long beforehand."

"It... just happened, like that," said Ron, turning a delicate shade of pink. "I can't really explain. It all went really fast, and before I knew it we were married."'

He shrugged, smiling a touch weakly at Narcissa.

Molly narrowed her eyes.

"You're not telling us the whole truth," she said.

"It's not proper to say too much," answered Narciss. "A man must naturally have his secrets, and his wife also. Our courtship was not—" She paused momentarily. "— _long_ , perhaps, and certainly our union was rushed, but I assure you that I am wholehearted in my devotion, and I swear do right by Ronald as his wife, and by his family also. You have received notice by now about the... _dowry_ , I suppose?"

Molly colored at this. Arthur cleared his throat.

"We have," he said, looking uncomfortable.

"And it was to your liking, I assume?"

"Er, well, I wouldn't call it a matter of _like_ or _dislike_ ," said Arthur, clearly flustered. "I mean it was quite a large sum, and I won't deny that, um—"

He cut off at a loss for words. Weakly, he shrugged.

"You can't buy our favor," said Molly steadfastly. "I don't approve of you taking advantage of our son."

"I assure you," answered Narcissa cordially, "Our relationship is _mutual_. Ron takes just as much advantage of me."

Ron blushed hotly.

"Well _really_ , now..." Molly spluttered, looking all the testier.

Narcissa continued to smile serenely. She squeezed Ron's hand, and he squeezed back. A touch of resolution entered into his face.

"I love her," Ron said, addressing his parents. "I—er, know it's real sudden, but I'm glad we're married. I'm her husband, and that's that. I love her."

"Do you mean that?" Arthur wondered, eyeing his son thoughtfully.

"I do," said Ron calmly, yet with a certain slight forcefulness in his tone. "I've only known her a little while, but I mean what I say. Cissa's my wife, and I love her. She's part of the family, now."

Ron said this last part with almost a hint of defiance, and his eyes kindled as they met those of his parents. Putting an arm around Narcissa, he pulled her close. Ron was a head taller than Narcissa, and the difference in their age seemed much less pronounced like this. Something about him seemed older, and something about her more youthful, sitting so close together.

Something in Arthur's expression seemed to soften, and he nodded almost imperceptibly, shrugging in a good natured way. He did still appear to look a touch curiously at Narcissa, but much of the doubt was gone from his eyes.

Arthur clasped his hands and nodded again, more pronouncedly.

"Well, if you're sure about this," he said reasonably. "I must admit it's still a bit of a shock, but so long as you're happy..."

Molly looked less ready to back down. She was protective of her children, and clearly mistrustful of Narcissa. Not without fair reasons, either, considering the woman's past associations.

"You better not have been involving our Ronnie in some scandal," she said tensely to Narcissa.

"I only approached him after my divorce from Lucius," said Narcissa. "If before I knew he was dead."

She sounded a little somber at this last bit.

"Do you miss him?" asked Molly.

"I regret that he is dead," replied Narcissa simply. "And I know Draco is upset at the loss of his father."

" _You_ don't miss him, then?"

"Of course I miss him," said Narcissa with a touch of asperity. "I loved him, once. I loved him the way any girl would love a man, when we were young. But that was many years ago. I do not regret marrying Lucius when I did, but I do regret what involvement I had with his... _society_."

Molly was silent for a moment. She peered into Narcissa's eyes with a searching, scrutinizing gaze. Were she a legilimens of any capacity, the intensity of her inspection would surely have uncovered every deepest secret in Narcissa's heart.

"What are your feelings for our son, then?" she asked curtly. "And what are your intentions toward him?"

"Love," said Narcissa plainly. "And other feelings less appropriate to name."

Molly and Arthur both colored at the insinuation.

"But I love him as deeply and truly as I have ever loved anyone," Narcissa continued unfazed. "Moreso, perhaps, because I have known love and loss enough to be wiser and more aware of my own heart. And as far as my intentions—well, what more can be said, when I have already married him? But if you ask, I will say that I intend to be a wife to Ron, and as good a wife as any woman ever was to a man. What else can I say but that?"

Molly seemed to relent at this.

Just a little.

Perhaps she felt sincerity in Narcissa's words, or maybe she was simply mollified by Narcissa's courteous speech. Whatever the cause, she nodded and waved a hand, as if signalling an end to the discussing.

"Fine, fine," she said with an air of begrudging concession. "Very well. If you mean what you say, then—well, I suppose I can give you my blessing. For now."

"Thank you," said Narcissa demurely, bowing her head. "I will do everthing in my capacity as a wife to support Ron, and to do right by his family."

Molly eyed Narcissa somewhat haughtily.

"We'll see," she said critically. "Can you cook?"

"Not especially well," Narcissa confessed. "But I do know _how_."

Molly nodded curtly.

"That will have to do," she said. "Come along, then. Let's get started on dinner."

Looking just a little bit out her depth, Narcissa glanced at Ron, and they exchanged a brief kiss, aught more than a fleeting peck of the lips, before getting up to follow Molly out into the kitchen.

Ron watched his wife go with some appreciation, following her back until she had vanished through the doorway.

Then he and his dad were left alone in the den.

"You can tell me the truth, son," Arthur said in a soft voice, leaning toward Ron. "I know what those kinds of rings mean, and what sort of magic is involved with that kind of marriage. So does your mother, I imagine. How did it rea;;u happen?"

"You, er, won't tell anyone?" said Ron, blushing.

"I won't tell your mother," said Arthur reassuringly.

Ron nodded, accepting this.

"Well, the thing came first," he said sheepishly. "Out of the blue, really. I woke up in the middle of the night and we were, um... _together_ , and it just sort of happened from there. I didn't understand a bit of it, at the time. I just thought it was a dream. But when I woke up, she was, er, still in bed with me. After that, I sort of learned the rest."

"I see," said Arthur absently, looking not unconcerned. "You don't think she was...?"

"Maybe she had her own reasons for it," said Ron quietly. "But I don't regret that it's happened, whatever the case. I'm glad for it, honestly. I wasn't lying when I said I love her."

Slowly, Arthur smiled and patted his son on the shoulder.

"I suppose that's good enough for me," he said. "Come on, then. I'm sure the others will be dying for news."

Ron nodded and got up to let the others back into the den.

* * *

"You sly dog!" said Fred, laughing. "I never would have thought you had it in you. Getting married to a rich older witch? And one as fit as that, too! We underestimated you, little brother."

He looked appreciatively at Ron, and George was grinning broadly beside him. Ron looked slightly flushed, for his part. Ginny sat in the same general vicinity as them, though she contributed less than they to the conversation.

Bill was talking to Arthur, but he also seemed to be paying attention to his younger siblings.

"Er, thanks," Ron mumbled, feeling pleased on the one hand with the tone of the twins' words, which was presently less teasing than their wont. Though they certainly still took the piss out of him in their own special way.

But on the other hand he felt a little flustered by their attention, and his mind was much distracted with glimpses of Narcissa out in the kitchen.

She seemed to be doing okay for herself, all things considered. Ron had half-guiltily offered to help a little bit after the brief talk with his dad, but Narcissa had promptly shooed him back out of the kitchen. Not ungratefully, mind. Rather she seemed to see helping with this dinner as a matter of pride, a kind of battle against her new mother-in-law, and did not want help from her husband. She was doing fairly well for herself, too, despite prior disclaimers about her cooking.

Although that might have been helped, perhaps, by the fact that Fleur was also in there to lend a hand to Narcissa. But the French, younger witch was quick with her critiques, and very set in her own way of doing things. Despite the glamor of Fleur's veela blood, Ron had felt a little annoyed to hear her early rebuke Narcissa's lackluster beginning efforts. Not that she was explicitly _unkind_ , in her criticisms, unless in an obliviously insensitive sort of way for which Ron was in no position to judge her or anyone else.

Well, who could say. Maybe it was just a cultural thing? Whatever the case, Narcissa actually seemed to get along rather well with Fleur. Perhaps it was the fact that both of them met with a certain common disapproval from Molly, and so banded together in the face of this shared adversary. Or maybe it was a common appreciation for tall, freckled, gingers. Cheerful cordiality marked their interactions, either way.

"She's a real looker, that's for sure," George agreed, breaking the silence. He gestured a bit crudely, tracing an hourglass shape in the air. "Just a shame about her son. Dreadful to think _he's_ a part of the family, now. But I suppose the money makes up for that."

Ron shrugged. "I guess," he said noncommittally.

Honestly, he'd barely thought about Narcissa's money at all. It had only once or twice really crossed his mind, during the past couple days. More often his thoughts about the marriage had centered on Narcissa herself, and the few pleasant and pleasurable experiences the two of them had shared so far.

He tried not to think about the fact that he was legally Draco's step-father.

"What are you going to do, though? About your wife, I mean, and Malfoy. Where will you all live? Not _here_ , surely." Ginny piped up, interjecting on the conversation. She said the word with a slightest hint of challenge. Clearly she felt no great love for Narcissa. "They're in hiding from You-Know-Who, aren't they?"

Ron gave a start at this, surprised. He hadn't told Ginny those aspects of his and Narcissa's situation. Indeed, he'd given his sister only the barest details possible about the circumstances around his marriage.

"How did you—?"

"Not everyone's as dense as you are, Ron," said Ginny, rolling her eyes. "I can read and pay attention to my surroundings. Lucius is dead. So is Bellatrix. And Crabbe and Goyle weren't just on a friendly social call, either, when they came into our compartment."

Ron shifted in his seat.

"...Yeah," he conceded. "You're right. Cissa went to Dumbledore to ask for his protection the night we were married." Technically this was entirely true, though the framing of the statement was deceptive in regard to what it suggested about the sequence of events. "She and Malfoy have been staying at headquarters since then."

Fred cocked an eyebrow at this.

"Huh. Is that really safe, I wonder?" he remarked, side-eyeing Ron.

"Don't look at _me_ ," Ron said. "It wasn't my decision. But I trust Cissa."

"You trust your wife," said George, shrugging along with Fred. "Sure. Fair enough. But what about her _son?_ "

". . ."

Ron did not answer this. He coughed into his fist and cast his eyes around the room, looking for a change of subject.

He spied Bill coming by and called out to him. Not that loudly, but enough to be heard.

"Oh. Hey, Ron," Bill said, greeting his youngest brother. He looked a mix of thoughtful and awkward. "Er, I've already congratulated you on your marriage, haven't I? But congratulations again. I'm still surprised, you know. I was sure _I'd_ be the first of us to get married."

His eyes flicked over to the kitchen, where Fleur was chatting with Narcissa while an appetizing smell wafted out into the den. Molly stood by, listening and keeping a close eye on dinner as it cooked, not making much active contribution to whatever the two blondes were discussing.

"Yeah, so would I have. But Fleur, huh?" said Ron, looking at Bill in a jokingly critical light. "I've got to say I'm surprised she'd go for _you_."

Bill laughed.

"I could say the same for you about Narcissa," said he. "It's surreal, make no mistake. I'm glad for you, though, and not just because—"

"—not just because she's rich?" Ron guessed.

"Right." Bill nodded, chuckling. "But at the same time, I have to admit that I'm also a little..." He paused, uneasy. "Well, when I think about it, it's still kind of..."

He trailed off lamely, unable or unwilling to elaborate further.

"Suspicious, isn't it?" Ginny concluded for him. "No offense," she supplied with dubious sincerity. "But it's hard to believe that a former Death Eater—or a Death Eater's ex-wife, same difference—" she added at a look from Ron. "—would shack up with you out of the blue. Not without some ulterior motive."

The looks on Fred and George's faces told that they felt similarly to Ginny, for all their joking and congratulations. Ron scoffed, however.

"I already said I trust her," he said intransigently.

"Is it really that you _trust_ her?" wondered George skeptically.

"Or do you just like _fucking_ her?" added Fred in an undertone. "She's a pretty thing, no mistake, and I don't doubt she's got some serious experience with wand handling, too."

Ron spluttered indignantly. Bill's cheeks colored a tad.

Ginny smiled dispassionately.

"Right. Does she ask you to punish her, Ron?" she said drily. "I bet Cissy likes to get spanked hard and called all sorts of awful names, doesn't she? And I'm sure she acts real eager, too, to get down on her knees and suck your—"

" _Ginny!_ " said Bill weakly, looking faintly aghast. "Where'd you ever learn to talk like that?"

Ginny directed a bluntly pointed look at the twins.

For their part, Fred and George looked only a little less unpleasantly surprised than Bill by their sister's vulgar insinuations. Of course, Bill himself was now eyeing them a little disapprovingly. As for Ron, he appeared less affected by the baldness of Ginny's speech than by her aspersions on Narcissa.

"It's not like..." he mumbled protestingly. "...I mean, there's loads more to what we've got than that. It's not just sex with me and Cissa."

"But there _is_ sex?" said Ginny flatly. She read the answer in Ron's blush. "Yes," she continued confidently. "I bet Cissy does all kinds of embarrassing things to get on her dear new husband's good side. Does she say you're the best she's ever had, for instance, or the biggest she's ever seen? Or maybe she swallows and tells you how much she loves the taste."

Ron's cheeks flamed to a shade of red brighter and more vibrant that even his hair.

"Oh Merlin, she really _does!_ " Ginny quietly exclaimed, choking back a laugh. "I don't know which of you to feel sorrier for. That's just..." She shook her head. "Trust me, Ron, she's _lying_."

Fred and George looked strangely from Ron to Ginny. It was hard to define the looks on their faces, apart from a twinge of something between envy and embarrassment. They laughed with Ginny's words, but it was a little insincere.

Bill turned as red as Ron, and his eyes again peered out into the kitchen, gluing themselves onto Fleur. Something about his demeanor suggested an abashed recognition or familiarity with something in Ginny's words.

"Or not. Maybe she really means it, who can say?" Ginny smoothly added a moment later, amused by her brothers' reactions. Brown eyes glittered mirthfully at the looks this verbal appendix now stirred on their faces.

Ginny had to bite her lip to keep from laughing just at seeing their expressions!

Bill in particular was looking at Fleur as though he had been just shallowly reassured against some suspicion of duplicity on her part, and now desperately committed himself to an honestly irrationally redoubled faith in her integrity. He looked like a muggle exposed to magic then given a _barely_ passably mundane explanation to which he clung as adamantly as to a lifeline.

Fred and George didn't look much more dignified than Bill, although their eyes didn't stare at specific. But Ron, strangely, seemed the **least** ruffled by Ginny's words. He appeared more irked than troubled, annoyed with her on principle rather than upset by any doubt. This was doubly peculiar considering Ron's usually sensitive pride and stupidly pronounced insecurities.

Well. Maybe getting hitched Narcissa had done him some good after all.

Ginny shook her head, mildly bemused.

It was still unbelievable. Ron was married in secret, in a single night, and to _Draco Malfoy's mum_ , no less _._

There had to be some divine prank or cosmic joke in all this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Two days shy of a month since the last update of this fic, haha. Of course I'd been much busied with a kinkfic commission elsewhere on the web, and also with some not inconsiderable but dubiously fruitful efforts on trying to write/devise an original work in an original setting (or as original as any fantasy can be, at least). Admittedly a short story would be easier, even if novels are more independently publishable...
> 
> But all griping about my continued inabilities to write anything original aside, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. The confrontation with the family might be less something than some of you hoped for, but ideally it can at least entertain you.
> 
> With only the most tenuous of tangential relevance, I will also add that I started a thing yesterday. There's not much to it in the way of features so far, and I dunno how reasonably I've set it up, mostly because it is at present only a tentative experiment. 
> 
> Updated: 7-3-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: "[...]So had Aunt Bella, of course, but sadly she'd never had a child, and now she was dead." I wrote this line well before ever getting and reading the script of Cursed Child, but in hindsight... haha, wow. Talk about a coincidence that is really not that significant at all and in fact only mildly amusing. But I think it's funny, at least.
> 
> Also, wow it took me a while to complete this chapter. Honestly I've been busy with successive smut "requests", and it was only by taking time from working on those that I was able to do this chapter at all. Writing for fun is great, but being able to write for money is nice in other ways.
> 
> Updated: 8-15-16
> 
> TTFN and R&R!
> 
> – — ❤

Draco was immensely surly when he appeared on the doorstep of the Burrow alongside his former head of house. Snape, for his part, seemed equally unhappy. Both looked at the house with some degree of distaste, Snape for who lived here, and Draco for the house itself. The latter indeed was appalled to be in the very presence of such a ramshackle and eccentric construction.

There was something disgustingly vulgar and _common_ about the Burrow. It had no prestige, no dignity, no SPACE! How could anyone actually stand to live in such a place, let alone a family as large as the Weasleys? It really was disgraceful. Only blood traitors with no proper wizarding pride would let themselves live in anything so slipshod. The whole thing looked ready to collapse.

Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the Burrow was the obvious magic in its construction. Muggles could not produce such a building as this. They needed huge stone bricks or beams of steel just to hold up anything more than a few stories high. But the Weasley's family home was clearly held up by decent charmwork, even if its overall appearance was still revoltingly undignified.

"Is my mother really here?" Draco muttered incredulously, looking around.

Snape did not look at Draco, who was under a disillusionment charm.

" _Not so loudly,_ " he hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

An affronted noise greeted this low pronouncement, but silence followed soon after. If Draco were presently visible, Snape imagined he would have been able to see a mulish expression on the boy's face.

For his part Snape did not look at all comfortable as he raised a hand to knock on the door. It took a few moments for the door to open, and the time seemed to stretch interminably. A faint tapping of shoes on the doorstep betrayed the impatience of his charge. But finally someone answered the knock.

"Ah, Snape," came the voice of the eldest of Molly and Arthur's spawn. The tall, lean form of Bill Weasley appeared, front door swinging open. "What brings you here?"

"Hogwarts business," Snape smoothly lied. This prevarication was not strictly necessary, since the Weasleys had expected him to come, and the wards that had been erected around the Burrow were unlikely to let in any spies or eavesdroppers, but caution was a good habit.

Bill cocked his head infinitesimally, and he squinted at the seemingly empty space beside Snape. He apparently saw a slight ripple in the air, because then he nodded and gestured for them to come in.

"Dinner's already started," Bill said, moving out of the way.

A curt, unpleasant nod was the only acknowledgement this statement got. Snape entered, and Draco came after him. Once the door was shut Snape tapped Draco with his wand and lifted the disillusionment charm. The blond looked a little peevish when he melted into visibility.

Bill led them to the kitchen.

* * *

Draco sat at a far too crowded table in a far too cramped dining room, looking around at a gaggle of far too many redheads. He'd always made jokes, following the example of his father, about how the Weasleys were so disgustingly prolific, but it was only now that he got a real sense of just how big the family was.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... plus Snape, himself, and his mother, and that French bird from the Triwizard tournament. That was eleven people around a table that seemed like it should seat only half that number, and not all of the Weasleys were even _here_. God, how could they handle this?

Draco looked around. Compared to how meals used to be in Malfoy manor with his mother and father, it felt so cramped and noisy and hectic. It was like the great hall at Hogwarts in miniature!

Plates and bowls were being passed along every few minutes, changing hands this way or that around the table. He'd blinked in confusion when a bowl of string beans was first shoved in front of him, staring blankly until one of the twins finally lost patience and summoned it, giving him an almost scornful look. It was only after subsequently observing the table for a few minutes that Draco realized he'd been expected to pass the bowl along. By hand. Like he was a _muggle_.

It was noisy, too. Not deafening perhaps, but a cacophony all the same, with at least three or four independent streams of conversation being carried out simultaneously. The Weasleys talked and chatted and jabbered as they ate, some of them even while their mouths were full. Ron was a semifrequent offender on that front, though he usually stopped himself with a sheepish expression when he looked at his mom.

Draco looked at his own mother, who was talking to the French girl as she ate. That girl was part-veela, Draco remembered hearing, and she certainly looked it. He couldn't help staring briefly at the cut of the young witch's robes, which showed just enough pale skin below her neck to tease at a suggestion of cleavage.

Only with some difficulty was he able to tear his eyes away, and then only because he felt a sharp look from the eldest Weasley brother. Not that he was intimidated by the guy, Merlin forbid. Of course not. He wasn't scared of Weasleys.

He just... er...

Draco distracted himself from an inability to justify his cowing to his own pride with a mouthful of food. Somewhat reluctantly, he inwardly had to admit that this, at least, was not objectionable. Not fancy, perhaps, but still appetizing. The fare was hot and satisfying in the belly, hearty and savory in the mouth, and plentiful and varied on the plate. The food was honestly very good, even if relatively plain and simple.

He could enjoy the meal, even if he felt uncomfortable and out of place dining with the Weasleys. It somewhat satisfied him to see that Snape appeared likewise uncomfortable.

 _Why did you bother bringing me here?_ he thought, looking at the potions professor and feeling entirely disappointed. _I shouldn't be here. Neither should mother._

At least in the Black family's old house he'd felt a sense of belonging. That was the home of his mother's ancestors, after all. The Blacks were a long line of proper, sensible Slytherins, a family of which he and his mother were the last blood descendants.

 _That aren't disowned, at least,_ a voice whispered in the back of Draco's mind.

He paused, but then shrugged this off. Who cared about some mudblood-lover and her halfblood brat?

_That mudblood-lover is your aunt, and her brat is older than you are._

Again, Draco dismissed these thoughts without ceremony. His mother at least had had the sense to marry a pureblood like father. So had Aunt Bella, of course, but sadly she'd never had a child, and now she was dead.

This thought was less upsetting to Draco than it probably should have been. Of course, he'd never really known his aunt...

 _Aunts_ , he corrected himself.

 _Aunt,_ the rest of him insisted, the majority fraction of Draco which yet took pride in being pureblood and still believed wholeheartedly in all the things he'd been taught growing up. _Blood traitors are no family of mine._

Another thought popped into his head almost as soon as he thought this, while scooping up a partial mouthful's worth of mashed potatoes.

_What does that make mother, then?_

Draco grimaced at this thought. He looked over the table, past Snape who was sourly staring at the contents of his plate as if daring them to even **try** and get in his mouth, past the she-weasel who was chattering with twin one and twin two opposite her, and past that bastard of a literal motherfucker, to his mum. She was looking from the French twat to the motherfucker—no, Draco would not dignify Weasley with such a title.

If only because he didn't want to think about his mother and Weasley doing—doing THAT. But even as he shook his head, Draco watched his mother smile at Ron, at the _**bloody weasel-king**_. Draco looked on with a sort of numb horror at the brightness and intensity of his mother's eyes, and the way Weasley looked her in return, at the smile he gave her and how he stroked her hand.

He shuddered, feeling revulsion at the sight.

His mother was married to a blood traitor. Even worse, to the best friend of bloody Harry "The Boy-Who-Lived" Potter. He still couldn't wrap his head around it. She told him she'd done it for his sake, to get in on the good side of Dumbledore and his cronies, but somehow those words seemed like a mere excuse when he looked at his mother and saw how she squeezed Weasley's hand.

He didn't understand it. It seemed as if his mother was genuinely... _fond_ of Weasley. Certainly she behaved with him in a way that Draco could not ever remember her acting with his father. It seemed especially galling and frustrating when he thought about the still-recent news of his father's death, a wound yet fresh in his belly. And here was his mother, the man's WIFE, already consorting and cavorting with another.

And a Weasley, at that. Draco couldn't swallow it. This seemed appalling, unbearable, disgraceful. He loved his mother, but he could not bring himself to accept this. Not so soon. _Not ever_ , a part of him thought bitterly. _I won't accept Weasley. I refuse. He is not my father. He has no right to be mother's..._

Draco cut this thought off ere he dwelt any further upon it. He didn't want to think about it, about THEM, together, as a couple, as husband and wife. His mother was married to a blood traitor, and she had personally turned on the Death Eaters, betrayed the Dark Lord and his cause. She said it was to protect him, but Draco still resented it, however glad a tiny, fearful part of him secretly was.

It seemed... dishonest, to him. He felt foolish and wicked for thinking even in part that maybe it was good to get away from the Dark Lord. He'd been raised to believe all the things Lord Voldemort had preached and worked for, but he couldn't ignore how relieved his mother was to be away from it all. Nor could he put out of mind the suggestion he had heard more than once when the news of his father's death first came out, that the Dark Lord had ordered it personally.

A part of him clung to this. A part of him brooded on this and nursed a slowly growing hatred for the Dark Lord, a vague and even wistful hope for vengeance.

His father was dead, murdered in a prison riot at Azkaban, perhaps on the Dark Lord's orders. That made sense, however much it horrified Draco to think it.

His mother had married Weasley, Ron Weasley, consummate blood traitor and best friend of Harry Potter, supposedly to endear herself and him to Dumbledore's side. That was not unbelievable.

Draco's world had been upended in so very many ways in a terribly short frame of time. Things he'd long taken for granted were gone or forsaken, and a cause he'd been taught from the cradle to scorn was now probably the only thing protecting himself and his mother from a messy, painful death. He wasn't sure what to think, what to believe.

In an unfamiliar environment he clung still to the beliefs he'd been raised with, but it was a tenuous grip, less firm and sure than he would have expected. He was so far outside his comfort zone that he barely knew what to say or do about anything. He'd spent the past couple days brooding and darkly obsessing, but eventually he'd run out of things to think and was now just ruminating, going through the same thoughts time and again with nothing new to add or gain.

Draco felt very lonely. There was no one he could turn to except his mother and Snape. He didn't want to talk to his mother about these things, he still felt upset with her and conflicted over her choices. He rarely COULD talk to Snape, the man having his own life and obligations and little time for the worries of a student, even the son of an old friend.

Nor was he sure how much he could trust Snape. He'd always believed the man was the same as his father, a supporter of the Dark Lord through and through. All this year he'd felt certain that Snape was on the side of the Death Eaters and just spying on Dumbledore for the Dark Lord. Now his mother told him that wasn't the case—probably.

Draco didn't think he trusted her on that. Admittedly, Snape had not yet tried to do him or his mother in as traitors, but that didn't mean much. If he was a spy for the Death Eaters then obviously he had a cover to maintain, and getting intel on Dumbledore and the Order of the Pheonix was probably more important to the Dark Lord than finishing off a couple of traitors. Not that this would protect him forever. When... _if_ You-Know-Who won, then it would go poorly for himself and his mother.

It was difficult for Draco to get used to the idea that the Dark Lord was the enemy now, even if that was what his mother had told him, even if she had explained at length all the ways in which, clearly, Voldemort was truthfully the ENEMY of purebloods and not their champion. This was hard to swallow. At best, he had managed to accept that the Dark Lord would kill or torture them if given the chance.

Or order one of the Death Eaters to do it, more likely. Draco had no illusions that he and his mother were really important enough to warrant Voldemort's personal attention, not if even his father hadn't. His father...

Draco was no blood traitor. Quite frankly he still very much despised just about everything Dumbledore and his following stood for. But the Order of the Pheonix, at least, didn't seem to want him dead. And if by siding with them he could somehow get a measure of vengeance for his father's murder, well, then Draco would do whatever he could. Whatever he had to.

When he thought about it that way, he could almost understand his mother's actions—at least as long as he told himself that she had married Weasley solely for leverage and convenience. The more he thought about it, the more he found himself wishing for revenge on the Dark Lord. The more he thought about it, the more he believed he really would do anything to have that revenge, even if only by surviving the war while Voldemort did not.

Even if it meant having to—to breed with _Granger_ or some other, equally insufferable mudblood. Survival mattered more than pride. The family mattered more than its blood. Malfoys were opportunists, not ideologues. This he had been taught quietly by his parents, like it was a dirty but necessary fact of life, yet in a way it was a point of pride.

Malfoys were always on the winning side.

**Always.**

* * *

Ron stepped out of the fireplace into Number Twelve. His trunk emerged from the emerald flames behind him a moment later, sliding out over the hearth and into the back of his leg; it nearly bowled him over, and he had to step smartly to keep from falling down.

Ron hissed a nearly inaudible curse and stepped further away from the hearth right before the form of Narcissa came spinning out of the fire. Draco appeared only a moment after that. Ron saw the other boy give him a baleful look.

This was understandable; were their positions reversed, Ron would have been just as unwilling to accept Draco as a stepfather. Still it irked him regardless of reason to be given such a look from an old enemy like him, and regardless of any vague sympathy Ron ignored Draco's glower, affecting a newfound air of indifference. He didn't care what Malfoy thought about him anymore, not really.

"Kreacher, would you bring Ron's trunk to our room?" Narcissa spoke to the air, breaking the silence and reminding the two young men that she was there while billowing emerald flames sank and turned orange.

Kreacher elf did not appear, even after a several expectant moments.

Ron frowned. "Er... did he hear you?" he asked uncertainly, speaking to Narcissa.

She nodded.

"A house elf always hears it when their name is called," she said offhandedly. "It's part of their magic. But they _can_ ignore a summons if the one calling is not their proper master."

"Or if they punish themselves?" Ron half guessed and half suggested, remembering Dobby and what Harry had said about him. He also remembered, somewhat unhappily, how Dobby had called his old masters bad wizards and how he had tried to punish himself almost immediately after that.

Ron tried hard not to think about the fact that it was the Malfoys who had been Dobby's old masters. He must have slipped, though, because Narcissa clearly caught something in his expression and gave him a long, slow, thoughtful look.

"It's more complicated than that," she said after a moment's pause, speaking quietly. "But I suppose it's possible, depending on the elf. In Kreacher's case, however, I think the answer is... rather simpler."

Draco huffed.

"He should be _ours_ ," he muttered. "He was willing to obey you before, wasn't he? Back when—"

He stopped himself short, seeing the look on his mother's face. Her expression was pained, with a good deal of something not unlike regret, and she glanced at Draco so sharply that he flinched almost as one menaced with a blow. Grey eyes flicked to Ron and darkened, seeing the comprehension and discomfiture on the redhead's face. A part of Draco was clearly tempted to continue, just to further spite Ron. But he didn't.

"Yes, Kreacher did, once," said Narcissa, and her voice was perceptibly strained. Her hands worked themselves into tight, knotted fists then slowly, tensely uncurled. "But that was before, back... back when I was married to your father."

Ron looked terribly uncomfortable at this. He bit his lip and averted his eyes from Narcissa, staring at a far corner of the floor. Somewhere in the house there was a distant shuffling noise.

Narcissa reached out to touch Ron's hand, perhaps to reassure him. He grimaced minutely at the contact but did not pull away, and after a moment he seemed to uncoil a tad, and his hand clasped hers. He looked at her again, but still didn't quite meet her eyes.

"I regret it every minute. You know that, don't you?" Narcissa whispered.

There was a sound as of feather-light footsteps coming up the hall.

"What?" Ron said, sounding a little defensive. "Marrying me?"

Narcissa sighed. It was only natural that some drama would start to emerge—honeymoons couldn't last forever. Still, this was a bit soon for marital stress to appear, and it bothered Narcissa to see how quick Ron could be to self-doubt and mistrust. They would need to work on that.

"No, not that," she said slowly, stroking Ron's hand. "Not you. I don't regret a single thing about our marriage. It's..."

"Sirius," Ron said, seeming at once to deflate and grow all the more uncomfortable. This was an intricately knotted matter of contradictory emotions and slow, subtle politic, the sort of thing he was absolutely the worst at dealing with. He looked at Narcissa with an unreadable, conflicted expression. "Right?"

They'd not yet addressed this topic, not yet. It was the elephant in the room, something neither of them wanted to discuss, no matter how much both knew on some level that they would need to work it out sooner or later. Up until now they'd ignored it, but...

A floorboard creaked just outside the door.

"He shouldn't have had to die," Narcissa said. "I regret everything about my part in that affair. Every day I wish I hadn't done it. I all but sent Sirius to his death; worse still I sent Harry, your friends, _you_."

Draco glanced from one to the other, looking nearly as discomfited as Ron and Narcissa.

Ron squeezed his wife's hand.

"We all do things we regret," he said. It was a feeble attempt to comfort her, and they both knew it. Still, there was truth in his words, however clumsily he expressed it.

"Some of us do more and worse than others, though..." Narcissa sighed. For a moment she looked at Ron and wished that they hadn't brought this matter up at all. She longed for their relationship to be simple, straightforward, and physical. A part of her wished that she and Ron could go to their room and fuck and forget all about all of this.

Hell, she was almost tempted to do exactly that, right before the door opened to reveal a young woman in her early twenties with a lank mop of somber, mousy brown where usually there lay a shock of bubblegum pink.

Draco spun around, both startled and grateful for an interruption. Narcissa looked up into the face of what seemed might possibly be her savior.

Ron turned his head.

"Tonks?"

The young woman in question did not seem to register the redhead's words. Instead she was staring directly at Narcissa, her expression cool and a little strained.

"Ah," said Tonks awkwardly, not quite meeting Cissa's eyes. "Is that you, then, Aunty?"

Narcissa winced. Tonks also seemed to cringe at her own words and tone.

"You're Andy's daughter, aren't you?" said Narcissa. "Nymphadora."

Tonks gave Narcissa a long, unreadable look. She seemed tired and a bit off-color, and not just in the follicular sense. Her face had an ashen gray, sickly sort of tint and her eyes looked dull and dark. Then Tonks turned her gaze to Ron, seeming oddly rueful.

"How is it, being married to a woman old enough to be your mum?"

She asked this out of the blue in a tone that suggested incongruous earnestness. Her entire being seemed to sharpen a touch, suddenly alert and attentive from out of the midst of a gloomy malaise.

Ron blinked, not sure how to take the question. He might have assumed it to be some kind of insult, if not for the way Tonks said it, and the way she stared into her eyes. It was oddly hopeful, a little fearful, anxious and eager and tense under the gray, lifeless melancholy which still enshrouded the woman.

After a long moment, feeling his face warm as he thought of how his and Narcissa's married life had gone so far, Ron shrugged and gave the most honest answer he could. Maybe a bit _too_ honest.

"The sex is good."

Draco made a ghastly sort of sputtering, choking, whimpering noise at this statement. Narcissa's fingers twitched, and her hand felt a little less cool in Ron's.

Tonks blinked. She still looked bleary, but her focus remained as she considered the answer, and her eyes seemed to light with something like amusement.

"That's the first thing you think of, huh," she said, smiling lopsidedly. "Well, I'm glad for you if that's the case. But I was hoping for something a little more, er..."

She shook her head, looking sheepish.

"Oh, that was a stupid thing to ask," she muttered. "Forget I said anything, okay? I suppose it's not really the same, here... at least, _he'd_ say it's different, because she's got money and..."

Tonks trailed off, and it was clear that these words were meant for herself and not anyone else. Draco still looked nauseous and angry at Ron.

She turned and made to leave.

"If you see Lupin," Tonks said, "tell him I think he's full of crap. And, er, maybe don't bring up that talk about killing Sirius? I don't think he'd like that."

Narcissa smiled weakly as Tonks left. Then she looked at Ron, who appeared vaguely confused.

"' _The sex is good,'_ huh?" she parroted with a hint of restored humor, both pleased and amused by how Ron had answered her niece's question.

Draco sputtered and bolted out of the room nearly as fast as his legs could carry him, his cheeks tinged a sickly green.

Ron's face reddened. "It's the truth," he said sheepishly. "Isn't it?"

"Certainly," Narcissa said, her voice deliberately low and throaty. "It's not a bad thing to say about our marriage. Probably even the truest answer you could've given, this early in."

She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

"Is that a bad thing?" Ron wondered.

"Only if you want it to be," said Narcissa.

Both were glad for this change of topic, and neither felt any hurry to return to their previous discussion. So Narcissa absentmindedly performed a _locomotor_ charm on Ron's things before they both made for their new, shared bedroom.

It wasn't the worst thing to base a relationship on, really. Not the best, certainly, but not the worst either.

They were who they were.


End file.
